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NOTES ON SYRACUSE 



Read at the Royal Society of Literature, February 24, March 9, 
and March 23, 1848. 



J 

BY WILLIAM MARTIN LEAKE, 



ONE OF THE VICE-PRESIDENTS. 



TOPO GRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES 
ON SYRACUSE. 



It is proposed in the following pages to illustrate some 
of the principal events of Syracusan history by means 
of the accompanying plan of the ancient site and sur- 
rounding country, which has been reduced from an 
Ordnance Survey, conducted, in the year 1808, by the 
Officers of the Royal Engineers under the command 
of Captain (now Lieut. -General) Thackeray. Many 
additions have been made to the original plan, and the 
ancient names have been adapted to the present me- 
moir. 

It is not often that the topographer of Ancient Greece 
can refer with confidence to a Roman for his testi- 
monies ; but in the instance of Syracuse we possess, 
in Cicero, the description of a learned and enlightened 
clvt6ttt7)s. His residence at Syracuse preceded by four 
years his description of the city in one of the Verrine 
Orations, and it is so accurate as to render unneces- 
sary any discussion in proof of the general topography, 
and even of many of the subordinate localities. 

In regard to the extant antiquities of Syracuse, I 
shall confine myself to such remarks as may appear to 
be connected with its history or illustrated by its topo- 
graphy, referring for a delineation and description of 

A 



2 NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 

them to the elegant and learned work of the Duke of 
Serradifalco. 

"You have often heard," says the Orator, "that 
Syracuse is the greatest of Greek cities, and the most 
beautiful of all cities. And it is so : strong by its 
position, its approach presents an admirable appear- 
ance. Its harbours are almost surrounded by buildings, 
and form part of every general view of it : each of 
these ports has a separate entrance, but within they 
communicate with each other. And thus the part of 
Syracuse called the Island is separated from the other 
parts by a narrow branch of the sea, but is re-united to 
them by a bridge. So vast is Syracuse that it may be 
said to consist of four very great cities. One of these 
is the island just mentioned, which is embraced by the 
two ports, and is prolonged to the entrances of them 
both. It contains the building which was formerly 
the palace of Hiero, and is now the residence of the 
Roman Praetor. Here also are several sacred edifices, 
two of which far excel the others, namely, that of 
Diana and that of Minerva, which, before the arrival of 
this man (Verres), was most highly adorned. On an 
extremity of the island is a fountain named that of 
Arethusa, incredibly large and copious, full of fish, 
and which would be covered by the sea, if it were not 
protected from the waves by a construction of stone. 
Another of the constituent cities of Syracuse is called 
Achradina ; it contains a very spacious forum, most 
beautiful porticoes, a highly ornamented prytaneium, a 
most ample council-house, and a superb temple of 
Jupiter Olympius. The other parts of Achradina 
consist of one continuous wide street, and many others 
in transverse directions, which are occupied by private 
edifices. In the third city, called Tycha from an 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



3 



ancient temple of Fortune, which it contains, there is 
a most ample gymnasium : this part of Syracuse is 
commodious, and is occupied by a great number of in- 
habitants. The fourth city is that which, having been 
built the last, is named Neapolis. In its upper part is 
a vast theatre and two superb temples, one of Ceres, 
the other of Libera : here also is the statue of Apollo, 
surnamed Temenites, most beautiful, and of such mag- 
nitude that this man could not remove it, though he 
would not have hesitated to do so, if he had been 
able." 1 

1 " Urbem Syracusas maximam esse Grsecarum urbium, pulcherri- 
m am que omnium, saepe audistis. Est, judices, ita, ut dicitur ; nam 
et situ est, cum munito, turn ex omni aditu vel terra vel mari, prae- 
claro ad adspectum ; et portus habet prope in aedificatione, adspec- 
tuque urbis inclusos ; qui cum diversos inter se aditus habeant, in 
exitu conjunguntur et confluunt. Eorum conjunctione pars oppidi, 
quae appellatur Insula, mari disjuncta angusto ponte rursum adjungi- 
tur et continetur. Ea tanta est urbs, ut ex quatuor urbibus maximis 
constare dicatur : quarum una est ea, quam dixi Insula : quae duobus 
portubus cincta in utriusque portus ostium aditumque projecta est : 
in qua domus est quae regis Hieronis fuit, qua praetores uti solent. 
In ea sunt aedes sacrae complures ; sed duae, quse longe caeteris ante- 
cellunt : Dianae una ; et altera, quae fuit ante istius adventum orna- 
tissima, Minervae. In hac insula extrema est fons aquae dulcis, cui 
nomen Arethusa est, incredibili magnitudine, plenissimus piscium : 
qui fluctu totus operiretur, nisi munitione ac mole lapidum a mari 
disjunctus esset. Altera autem est urbs Syracusis cui nomen Achra- 
dina est : in qua forum maximum, pulcherrimae porticus, ornatissi- 
mum prytaneium, amplissima est curia, templumque egregium Jovis 
Olympii : caeteraeque urbis partes una lata via perpetua multisque 
transversis divisae, privatis aedificiis continentur. Tertia est urbs, 
quae, quod in ea parte, Fortunae fanum antiquum fuit, Tycha nomi- 
nata est, in qua et gymnasium amplissimum est et complures aedes 
sacrae : coliturque ea pars et habitatur frequentissime. Quarta autem 
est urbs, quae, quia postrema aedificata est, Neapolis nominatur : quam 
ad summam theatrum est maximum : praeterea duo templa sunt 
egregia, Cereris unum, alterum Liberae, signumque Apollinis qui 



4 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



The foundations, and in some places two or three of 
the lower courses of the ancient walls of Syracuse, are 
to be observed throughout the greater part of the cir- 
cuit of cliffs which surround its tabular hill ; it is only 
towards the south, where Achradina 1 terminated in the 
sea or bordered upon Ortygia and Neapolis, that these 
vestiges cease to be traceable. Nor can any of the 
walls of Neapolis be distinctly traced, except towards 
the western extremity, where their direction is suffi- 
ciently in agreement with that of the cliffs which 
terminate the lower or north-western platform of 
the Syracusan heights, immediately adjacent to the 
marshy plain, to leave little doubt as to the extent of 
Neapolis on its southern side. At the western extre- 
mity Neapolis was very narrow, its walls having formed 
an acute angle with the wall of Epipolse between Tre- 
miglia, and where a natural opening in the cliffs seems 
anciently to have contained a gate leading from Neapo- 
lis into Epipolee. The southern wall of Neapolis must 
have abutted at its eastern end on the western wall 
of Achradina, and apparently nearly at a right angle, 
for the wall of Achradina appears to have descended 
from a shoulder of the cliffs near the amphitheatre 
and adjacent latomiee, directly to the shore of the great 
harbour ; there being observable between the former 
point and the shore heaps of stones and many squared 



Temenites vocatur, pulcherrimum et maximum, quod iste (Verres), 
si portare potuisset, non dubitasset auferre." — Cicero in Verr. Act. 
ii. 4, c. 52, 53. 

1 Acradina is the form generally employed by the Latins, but the 
Sicilian Diodorus, who writes 'Axpablvrj, is a better authority, and seems 
to show that the 'Axpddes or wild pear-trees, some of which are still 
to be seen on the heights of Achradina, were the origin of the name. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



5 



blocks, sufficiently indicating the former existence of a 
large ancient wall in that situation. In this wall were 
the Portae Agragianas, 1 or gate, so called as leading to 
the part of Sicily of which the chief city was Acragas, 
or Agragas, or Agrigentum. The vicinity of the 
Agragian gate to the marsh Lysimeleia or Syraco, 2 
which occupied a great part of the plain at the head 
of the harbour, is shown by an occurrence in history. 
When Dionysius the First, in the year b.c. 406, re- 

1 On the outside of these gates Cicero discovered the tomb of 
Archimedes, which he identified by means of a copy of the epitaph in 
his possession ; though on the monument he found nearly one-half 
of the lines obliterated by the effects of time and neglect. The 
occurrence furnishes a remarkable, though very common example 
of incuriousness as to local monuments, where ignorance prevails : 
and Syracuse was then in one of its lowest conditions. Fifty-five 
years afterwards it was made a Roman colony by Augustus, and 
recovered in some degree its importance. The following is Cicero's 
account of his interesting discovery. 

"... Archimedem : cujus ego quaestor ignoratum ab Syracusanis 
cum esse omnino negarent, septum undique et vestitum vepribus et 
dumetis, indagavi sepulchrum : tenebam enim quosdam senariolos, 
quos in ejus monumento esse inscriptos acceperam ; qui declarabant, 
in summo sepulchro sphseram esse positam et cylindrum. Ego autem, 
cum omnia collustrarem oculis, (est enim ad portas Agragianas magna 
frequentia sepulchrorum,) animadverti columellam non multum e 
durais eminentem : in qua inerat sphaerse figura et cylindri. Atque 
ego statim Syracusanis (erant enim principes mecum) dixi me illud 
ipsum arbitrari esse, quod qusererem. Immissi cum falcibus multi 
purgarunt et aperuerunt locum. Quo cum patefactus esset aditus, ad 
adversam basim accessimus : apparebat -epigramma, exesis posteriori- 
bus partibus versiculorum, dimidiatis fere. Ita nobilissima Grsecise 
civitas, quondam vero etiam doctissima, sui civis unius acutissimi mo- 
numentum ignorasset, nisi ab homine Arpinate didicisset." — Cicer. 
Tusc. Qu<est. 5, 23. 

2 Thucyd. 7, 53. Theocr. Id. 16, 34. Stephan. in ZvpaKovaai. 
Syraco was probably a local name existing at the time of the Greek 
colonization. 



6 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



covered possession of Syracuse, he effected his entrance 
into the city by setting fire to the gate of Achradina, 
by means of reeds which had been collected from the 
neighbouring marsh for the purpose of burning lime. 1 

To the north-westward of the theatre, between it 
and the elevated level of Epipolse, a rocky space, two 
or three hundred yards in breadth, is full of sepulchral 
excavations in the rocks, some of which are faced with 
Doric fronts, consisting of two columns and a pediment. 
A winding road, cut also in the rock, descended from 
Epipolse through this cemetery, and passed along the 
summit of the theatre into the lower part of Neapolis. 
In the fifth century b. c, when the walls of Syracuse 
included no more than Ortygia and Achradina, these 
rocks, having been not far from the exterior of the 
walls, were exactly such a situation as the Greeks 
were accustomed to employ for their places of inter- 
ment. When Epipolse, Tycha, and Neapolis were 
comprehended in the general enclosure, this rocky 
district was necessarily included within the city ; and 
if we may judge from the apparent date of some of the 
monuments, the place still continued after that change 
to be employed for sepulchral purposes, although it 
was contrary to the ordinary usages of Greece to have 
sepulchres within the walls. But the same may be 
observed at Agrigentum, where, as at Syracuse, it was 
undoubtedly caused by the enlargement of the city. 

On the hill which rises above the theatre and the 
latomise, or ancient quarries, which are now known by 
the names 'il Orecchio di Dionysio' and c il Paradiso,' 
stood the colossal statue of Apollo, surnamed Teme- 
nites from the Te^evos, or sacred portion of land 



1 Diodor. 13, 113. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



7 



which was attached to it. 1 Hence also the name 
Temenitis, which continued to be applied to the 
height 2 and suburb contiguous to the north-western 
side of Achradina until the time when, together with 
the entire lower platform, they became, under the name 
of Neapolis, a portion of the city Syracusse. 

Achradina was distinctly divided by nature into an 
upper portion to the north-east, adjacent to the outer 
sea, and a lower in the opposite direction, adjacent to 
the two harbours of Syracuse. 

The foundations, and in some places two or three 
courses of the western wall of upper Achradina, which 
was the outer wall of Syracuse prior to the reign of 
Dionysius, may still be traced, to the extent of a mile 
and a quarter, in a direct line from their northern extre- 
mity near the creek of Santa Bonagia or Panagia ; and 
they furnish, together with the vestiges of the western 
wall of lower Achradina, already noticed, sufficient 
evidence as to the extent and general direction of the 
walls of Achradina on the land side : towards the sea, 
foundations of its walls are to be seen in many places 
along the crest of the cliffs ; and thus we have evidence 
of the extent of Syracuse when it consisted of no more 

1 This statue, described by Cicero as signum pulcherrimum et 
maximum, and which was saved only by its magnitude from the spo- 
liation of Verres, was taken to Rome by Tiberius, as we learn from 
Suetonius, who describes it as Apollinem Temeniten et amplitudinis 
et artis eximise. Naxus and Gela had, like Syracuse, statues of 
Apollo on the outside of their walls. In each of these places the 
Apollo was surnamed Archagetes. (Stephan. in Ndgos, Te'Aa.) The 
Apollo of Syracuse had probably the same epithet, as well as that of 
Temenites. Apollo was the ap^ayeVr/s, Archias the oIkio-ttjs of Syra- 
cuse. Stephanus describes Tepevos as tottos tis rrjs St/ceA/us vtto ras 
'E7ri7roXas npos rais 2vpaKovaais. 

2 r] aKpa TeiievLTis. — Thucyd. 7, 3, § 3. 



8 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



than Ortygia, Achradina, and the suburb Temenitis. 
Thucydides, writing in those times, describes Syracuse 
as divided into an inner and an outer town (rj ivros koI rj 
etjco 7to\l9) } making no mention of the names Ortygia and 
Achradina. Epipolee, according to the same historian, 
derived its name from its situation eTrnrokrjs (above) 
the city: he adds, that it was adjacent to the city, 
rising in a slope above it, and commanding a view of 
every part of it {%a>piov airoKpr\ybVov re kcll airb rrjs 
TroXecos evdu9 /ceifjue'vov. — e^rjpTjjrac jap to ^coplov, kcll ^XP l 
rrjs nroXecos eiriKkLves re eari /cat kir Leaves ttclv etcra).) 1 
Epipoke, therefore, at the time of the Peloponnesian 
war (b. c. 414), was the name applied to the whole 
table-height, bordered by cliffs, which rises in a slope 
from the site of Achradina to the summit of Mongi- 
bellisi. Dionysius the First, soon after that war, be- 
gan to enclose this height, and in process of time there 
arose upon it two of the five great quarters of Syracuse, 
or component ' cities,' as they were called ; namely, — 
Epipolse at the upper extremity, and Tycha, so called 
from a Tv^elov or temple of Fortune, around which 
this quarter was gradually formed. Tycha was near 
the northern cliffs of the great Syracusan platform, as 
seems evident from the fact, that Marcellus, when he 
had failed in his attack upon Euryalus on the summit 
of Epipoke, encamped between Tycha and Neapolis ; 2 
whence likewise it appears that in the year b. c. 212, 
Tycha, whatever may have been its dimensions more 
anciently, was then separated from Neapolis to the 
southward by a vacant space in the middle of the great 
Syracusan platform. To the east, Tycha was bounded 
by a hollow, which lies between it and the upper 



1 Thucyd. 6, 96, § 1, 2. 



2 Liv. 25, 25. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



9 



Achradina. The latter height was separated by a wall 
from lower Achradina, and thus formed a second citadel 
of Syracuse, as becomes manifest from some occur- 
rences in history which will be noticed hereafter. In 
the time of Marcellus, and still more in that of Cicero, 
Syracuse, although it still preserved great remains of 
its former magnificence, was much reduced from its 
autonomous condition, as indeed we may infer from 
the Orator's division of it into four cities ; whereas 
more anciently it had consisted of five : so that Epipolse 
appears at that time to have been deserted. Syracuse 
had declined still further, when it was colonized by 
Augustus, and when its dimensions appear to have 
been nearly the same as in the Peloponnesian war. 

"In our time," says Strabo, 1 " when Pompey had 
ruined many cities, and Syracuse among the number, 
Augustus Caesar sent thither a colony, and occupied a 
large portion of the ancient site : formerly it consisted 
of five cities, and was surrounded with walls, 180 
stades in circumference, which were filled with habi- 
tations. But Augustus thought it better to re-establish 
the part which is adjacent to Ortygia, and which has 
still the dimensions of a respectable city." 

In the time of the Peloponnesian war, Syracuse 
comprehended, as already hinted, no more than two 
of the four cities mentioned by Cicero, — Ortygia and 
Achradina ; but not many years afterwards (b. c. 402), 

1 'E<£' f]fj.a>v Se, UopTrqtov rds re aXXas KaKcoaavros 7r6\€i$, Kai 8rj Kai 
ras "2vpaKovo~as, 7reptyas airoudav 6 HefiacrTOS Kaicrap, noKv pepos Kai tov 
7raXaiov KTio-paTOs ai>e/3aAe. UevTairokis ydp rjv to TraXaibv, eKarov Ka\ 
oyborjKovTa oraSiW e^owa to ra^oy. ' 'AnavTa pev 8rj tov kvkXop 
€K7rXrjpovv tovtov ovdev e8ei' to 8e crvvoiKovpevov to 7rp6s Trj vrjcrco r$ 
'Oprvyta pepos arjBr] Seu> oifaVat fiehTiov, dgioXoyov 7rdXe&)? '4\ov Treptperpov. 

—Strabo, p. 270. 

B 



10 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



Dionysius I. raised a wall along the northern cliffs 
of the great Syracusan platform ;* and in this state 
of defence Epipobe remained for a century, the side 
towards the Anapus having apparently been thought 
sufficiently protected by its woods and rocks ; but in 
the year 309 b. c. the Carthaginians under Hamilcar, 
whose army was stationed around Polichne, having 
penetrated through those natural defences into Epi- 
poise, where they were defeated chiefly by means of an 
attack upon their left from Euryalus, 2 the expediency 
of completing the artificial protection of the southern 
side of Syracuse must have become evident. The 
exact time at which this part of the defences was 
built cannot be found in history, but nothing is more 
likely than that it was one of the numerous works of 
Agathocles, during whose absence in Africa the Car- 
thaginians had made their attack. It appears that 
about ninety years before this event, and ten years 
after the accession of Dionysius I. to power, Neapolis 
and Temenitis still formed an open suburb of Achra- 
dina (rfjs y Axpa8ivrj$ irpodareiov) ; 3 for in that year the 
suburb Temenitis was taken, and its temples of 
Ceres and Cora plundered by the Carthaginians under 
Himilco, whose head -quarters, like those of Hamilcar 
ninety years afterwards, were at Polichne, and whose 
fleet was, on that occasion, in possession of the great 
harbour. 4 As Hamilcar in 309 did not occupy Neapolis, 
but scaled the southern cliffs of Epipolse, in order to 
arrive at the walls of Syracuse, it seems evident, that 
between the years 396 and 309 Neapolis had been 

1 Diodor. 14, 18. 

2 Diodor. 20, 29. Cf. Plutarch, in Timoleon 21, who describes this 
part of Syracuse as the strongest (f) ^laiorarov rjv). 

3 Diodor. 14, 63. 4 Id. 11, 26. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



11 



fortified. We can hardly doubt that it was one of 
the works of Dionysius L, who, in the year 385 b. c, 
had, among other magnificent constructions executed 
by him, surrounded Syracuse with walls of such an ex- 
tent, that it became the greatest of Greek cities. 1 He 
seems therefore to have enclosed the whole circum- 
ference, except a portion of it towards the Anapus. 

Of the natural and unvarying features of Syracuse, 
the fountains and rivers are among the most worthy of 
notice. Pliny enumerates them in the following words : 
" Colonia Syracusse cum fonte Arethusa, quanquam 
et Temenitis et Archidemia et Magaea et Cyane et 
Milichiee fontes in Syracusano potantur agro." Of 
these, the two most celebrated, Arethusa and Cyane, 
are easily recognized. The former is a copious source, 
issuing below the wall on the western side of Ortygia, 
not far from its southern extremity. Another stream, 
which is derived probably from the same subter- 
raneous origin, rises in a large body in the sea, at no 
great distance : this is now called Occhio della Zilica, 
the Italian form of an Arabic name. No notice of it 
is found in any ancient author. The Arethusa owed 
its fame and mythological sanctity to its having sup- 
plied the original Corinthian colony with water ; but 
as soon as Syracuse had extended itself over the 
adjoining heights, neither the low situation of the 
fountain nor the quality of the water, which holds 
some saline matter in solution, would allow the Syra- 
cusans to be satisfied with this supply, nor at length 
with that of the other sources which are found among 
the heights on the southern side, from whence they 
flow to the marsh Lysimeleia. As at Athens, a 
quadrangular conduit, excavated in the rock, was 
1 Diodor. 15, 13. 



12 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



formed to convey a constant stream from distant 
sources sufficiently elevated to distribute the water to 
every part of the city. The aqueduct of Syracuse is 
derived from the Anapus not far below Sortino, at a 
distance of ten miles from Syracuse ; it is conducted 
along the foot of Mount Hybla, and from thence under 
Belvedere and across Epipolte, in the direction of lower 
Achradina, preserving throughout the required declivity. 
In some places it was so deep below the surface of the 
ground as to require spiraglj, or vertical openings, 
100 feet in depth; in others, the conduit met the 
surface of the ground, and was covered with beams 
of stone. The mode of construction throughout is 
similar to that which is found in the aqueducts of 
some of the principal cities of Greece ; from which 
similarity, as well as by its differing from Roman aque- 
ducts, which were generally formed in a line as nearly 
direct as possible, and carried over valleys upon arches, 
the aqueduct of Syracuse is evidently a work of auto- 
nomous Syracuse, and older probably than the Pelo- 
ponnesian war ; for we are told by Thucydides (6, 100) 
that the Athenians, when they had established them- 
selves on Epipolee, which is traversed by the aque- 
duct, destroyed the subterraneous channels (onerous 
vTropo/ubrjSov) which supplied the city with water. At 
the city the aqueduct became double, having one 
channel above the other, in order to admit of an issue 
at different heights. Numerous branches were also 
made from the main conduit for the same purpose of 
general distribution. The aqueduct still conveys water, 
the discharge of which is through the ancient theatre, 
where, in the middle of the cavea, it turns a mill, 
which is founded upon the seats of the theatre, 1 and 
1 An attempt was made to induce the late king, Ferdinand I., to 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



13 



discharging itself through the proscenium, traverses the 
plain to the bay near which it is crossed by a bridge. 

As the quarter Temenitis was immediately above 
the theatre, the ancient fountain of that name was pro- 
bably one of the principal issues of the aqueduct in that 
situation, from whence having, since the ruin of this 
part of Syracuse, taken its natural course, it now follows 
the hollow formed by the excavation of the theatre, 
and thus falls in a cascade over its ancient seats. 

Another of the fountains named by Pliny, but it 
is impossible to say which, is probably that which 
issues at the casino of Tremiglia, so called as being 
situated at a distance of about three miles from Ortygia, 
or the modern Syracuse. The stream flowing from it, 
which now forms a large contribution to the marsh 
Lysimeleia, was conveyed by the Romans towards lower 
Achradina, as appears by the remains of a low-arched 
conduit, traceable in a direction between the two 
points along the platform of Neapolis. 

The rivers Anapus and Cyane are readily identified 
by the fact, sufficiently deducible from the narrative of 
Thucydides, but more directly attested by Ovid, 1 that 
these streams united their waters, and flowed in a single 
body into the bay of Syracuse. The Anapus, com- 
posed of numerous torrents, which have their origin 
in the mountains to the north-west of Syracuse, is 
turbid, as rivers formed by torrents generally are, and 



authorize the removal of the mill, hut unfortunately it belonged to a 
noble who had better interest with his majesty than the antiquaries 
of Syracuse. When the king visited the place, he remarked, " Un 
inolino val piu d'un gradino ;" and this royal joke sealed the fate of 
the theatre, which still continues to be the bed of a river. 

1 " Quaque suis Cyanen miscet Anapus aquis." — Ep. ex Ponto 
ii. 10, v. 26. 



14 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



it contains little water, except in rainy seasons, being 
copiously drained for the turning of mills and the irri- 
gation of fields. The deep-seated springs and pellucid 
blue waters (tcvava vBara) of the Cyane flow in a deep 
channel over a sandy bottom, and are bordered with 
aquatic plants, particularly the papyro, or Cyperus pa- 
pyrus. This plant not being found in a native state in 
any other place in Greece or Italy, was originally, per- 
haps, transplanted hither from Egypt, where, although 
not found at present, 1 it was common in ancient times, 
and was cultivated for various uses, of which the most 
important was the manufacture of paper. The source 
of the Cyane is a beautiful circular basin of about 50 feet 
in diameter, between 20 and 30 feet deep, abounding 
in subaqueous plants, and in fish, particularly the ce- 
phalus or mullet : at the bottom are seen some large 
blocks of stone, which once doubtless encircled the 
margin of the fountain. On the height above, at a 
place called Ciane, some vestiges of an ancient build- 
ing mark probably the site of a temple of the nymph 
Cyane, and the place of a festival which has been 
alluded to by Diodorus and iElian. 2 

The river which flows from the fountain Cyane is 
joined, after a course of a few hundred yards, by a 
stream from another similar source to the southward. 

1 The Cyperus papyrus, or Papyrus anti quorum, is said to have 
been recognized in some marshes near Damietta ; but I have never 
met with any traveller, skilled in botany, who had succeeded in find- 
ing it. A suspicion may perhaps arise, that the triangular rush of 
the fountain Cyane, a plant not uncommon in the conservatories of 
England, is different from the paper plant of the Egyptians; but 
Mr. Stoddart, late Consul at Alexandria, has succeeded in making 
from the Syracusan plant paper of various degrees of fineness, and 
some exactly resembling the ancient paper of Egypt. 

2 Diodor. 5, 4. ^Elian. Var. Hist. 2, 33. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



15 



The former is now called Pisma, the latter Pismotta : 
this was undoubtedly one of the fountains in Syra- 
cusano agro, named by Pliny. The united stream from 
Pisma and Pismotta is now known, at least among 
the uneducated peasants and boatmen, by the name 
of 'Anapo, the Anapus itself being called the river of 
Sortino, a change of the same kind as occurred at 
Troy, where the Simoeis of Homer is the Scamander 
of the later Greeks. 1 

1 See 'Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor,' p. 291, where, in favour 
of the hypothesis that the river Mendere is the ancient Simoeis, and 
Bunarbashi the site of Troy, I have insisted on a fact well known to 
geographers, namely, the frequent occurrence, in the progress of 
ages, of changes in the courses and names of rivers near the sea, 
and in particular that " the two branches of a river are often con- 
founded with one another, or with the united stream, or are trans- 
ferred from the one to the other." The Anapus and river of Cyane 
might have been adduced among the other examples of this fact. 
Fazello (de Rebus Siculis, Panormi, 1558, p. 106) confirms the modern 
name of the Anapus to have been in his time that which I have 
stated, by the remark, that after the junction of the branch from Sortino 
with that which descends from Palazzuolo, Cassaro, and Ferla, the 
united stream assumes the name of River of Sortino (Sortini nomen, 
priore relicto, suscipit, ac deinceps agrum Syracusanorum alluens, 
&c). In the time of Cluverius, who, although an ultramontane, 
was well acquainted with Sicily and a correct observer, the Anapus 
was named Alfeo (Anapus amnis hodie accolarum simplicitate, vulgari 
vocabulo Alfeo dictus. (P. Cluver. Sicil. Ant. p. 175. Lugd. Bat. 
1619). It is true that in the most modern maps we find the name 
Anapus restored to the river of Sortino in the Italian form Anapo ; 
but this is the effect of an improved geography and archaeology which 
has not yet been adopted by the uneducated. A similar correction 
of names is now rapidly occurring in Greece ; and it seems certain 
that no such name as Anapo, as a modern name, was known in the 
times of Fazello and Cluwer. It is curious to remark that Anapo, 
being a Greek name ('Avcmos) , is pronounced by accent and not by 
quantity (Anapus) : in like manner Kardva, in Latin Catana, is now 
Catania ; Tdpas, Tdpavros, in Latin Tarentum, is Taranto, like Kopivdos, 
Adpto-cra in Greek, pronounced Korintho, Larissa. 



16 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



Another of the Plinian fountains is probably that 
named Cefalino, situated a mile to the north-east of 
Cyane, and which discharges its water into the Anapus 
above its junction with the river of Cyane. 

Syracuse, although, like its metropolis Corinth, it 
flourished twice, once as a Greek city, and again, though 
with diminished lustre, as a Roman colony, did not 
resemble Corinth in having an interval of utter desola- 
tion, and was probably never so low in population as 
it is at present. To the Roman period belong the 
ruins of the amphitheatre, of some baths and aque- 
ducts, and of a cistern near the entrance of Ortygia, 
as well as some part of the catacombs, which, like the 
similar excavations at Rome, Naples, and Alexandria, 
were begun in more ancient times, and continued 
under the Roman government. At Syracuse it is 
likely that they are principally of the Hellenic period, 
on account of the much larger population of those 
times. It is easy to perceive that the Roman con- 
structions in general are on a much smaller scale than 
those of Hellenic Syracuse. Not the least remarkable 
among the latter are the foundations, and in many 
parts a few courses of the walls, which in a circuit of 
thirteen miles followed the sinuosities of the cliffs 
which encircle the site of Syracuse. To these are to 
be added the inner wall of Achradina already men- 
tioned, and vestiges of other interior enclosures, and 
of many public buildings in various parts of the site. 
But the most important ruins of Hellenic times are the 
castle of Euryelus (Dor. Euryalus) , now called Mongi- 
bellisi, on the summit of Epipolce; and in lower Syra- 
cuse the ruins of the theatre, and of the temples of 
Minerva and of Diana, to which may be added, as 
works of the elder Syracuse, the aqueduct already 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



17 



described, the quarries, and many sepulchral exca- 
vations. 

The ancient works at Mongibellisi 1 are extremely 
interesting, as affording one of the best examples of a 
Greek fortress serving for a citadel, and of the modes 
adopted by the Greeks for protecting the entrance of 
a great city on one of its most important points. The 
entrance was by two contiguous gates, 2 situated at 
the end of an approach between two converging walls, 
the access to which was exposed on the right or un- 
shielded side of the enemy to the northern long side 
of the fortress. Large solid towers afforded flanking 
defence where it was wanted. The fortress had a 
double enclosure, the inner being of an irregular shape, 
the outer a long quadrangle, which, with its outworks, 
projected about 200 yards beyond the converging ap- 
proach to the double gate. The western or outer, 
which was the narrowest front of the fortress, con- 
sisted of four towers of solid regular masonry con- 
nected by walls of equal breadth, but lower than the 
towers, so that balistic or catapeltic engines might be 
mounted upon the walls between the towers, like 
cannon in embrasures. In the rock upon which this 
front of the castle was founded were subterraneous 
passages communicating by twelve openings from the 
interior of the fort to a ditch cut in the rock, 25 feet 
in depth. Within the fortress, and near the battery, 
is seen a circular excavation, which was the entrance 
into those passages. The ditch led to the right by 

1 A name compounded of the Italian monte and the Arabic djebel 
(mountain). Mongibello is the modern name of iEtna. 

2 Examples of these double gates, one for entrance and one for 
exit, are found in several Etrurian and Italian ruins, and as late as in 
the walls of Rome of the time of Aurelian. 

C 



18 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



another subterraneous passage into a trench having a 
direction parallel to that of the route by which the 
converging walls of the gateway were approached. 
Along this trench there was a succession of places 
of exit, by means of stairs cut in the rock, and leading 
up from the passage below ; so that in an instant a 
complete rank of hoplitse might issue from the for- 
tress and make their appearance on the right flank of 
an enemy approaching the gate, and, if overpowered, 
might retreat with equal rapidity, protected from the 
pursuit of an enemy by the narrowness of the openings 
and by the construction of the stairs, which were 
incomplete in the lower part, thus requiring to be 
ascended from below by short wooden ladders, which 
might be withdrawn in a retreat. The western front 
of the castle was protected beyond the ditch by an 
outwork and a second deep ditch cut in the rock; and 
there was a similar ditch on the southern side of the 
western division of the fortress. 1 

These remains are the more worthy of notice as 
they show that the use of catapeltic engines had pro- 
duced a mode of fortifying similar to that of modern 
times. As they evidently belong to a period when 
the attack and defence of fortified places were in per- 
fection among the Greeks, they may with great proba- 
bility be considered as having been constructed during 
the long and flourishing reign of Hieron the Second, 
who spared no care or expense in improving the 
defences of Syracuse under the superintendence of 

1 A plan of these works by Mr. Cockerell has been published in 
Hughes's 'Travels in Sicily, Greece, and Albania,' i. p. 86; and 
another, with an elevation of the western front or battery, in the 
Duke of Serradifalco's * Antichita della Sicilia,' vol. iv., Plates 26, 
27. The annexed plan has been reduced from these authorities. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



19 



Archimedes, who, as well on the land side as towards 
the sea, constructed works adapted to machinery. 1 
There is a great probability, therefore, that these are 
some of the works of that celebrated engineer. It 
may be true that the catapeltic art (to KarairekTLKov) 
was invented or introduced into Sicily as early as the 
time of Dionysius I.; 2 but as the walls with which 
that sovereign protected the Syracusan platform on 
the northern side were said to have been erected in 
the short space of twenty days, 3 and as Diodorus 
makes no mention of any fortress in that work, but 
only of towers at intervals, it is probable that the 
walls terminated at the western extremity in a tower 
of greater magnitude, perhaps, than the others, — but 
a construction undoubtedly far less extensive and elabo- 
rate than that of Mongibellisi, which is not in the style 
of that early period, and belongs not to the infancy 
of the catapeltic art, but to the time of its perfection. 

Some writers on the topography of Syracuse have 
supposed the ruins at Mongibellisi to be those of the 
ancient Hexapylum or Hexapyla, an opinion chiefly 
founded on the passage of Diodorus just alluded to, 
and on the supposition that the openings in the 
western front of the fortress are some of the six gates 
indicated by that name. On examining these works, 
however, it becomes manifest that the openings were 
not gates, but embrasures for balistic engines. And 

1 " Ita maritima oppugnatio est elusa, omnisque vis est eo versa, ut 
totis viribus terra adgrederentur. Sed ea quoque pars eodem omni 
adparatu tormentorum instructa erat, Hieronis impensis curaque per 
multos annos, Archimedis unica arte." — Liv. 24, 34. 

2 Diodor. 14, 42. ^Elian, V. H. 6, 12. Plutarch, Apophth. 
Lacon, p. 219. Athen. de Machin. p. 4. 'OgvfieXds KaraneXrai, for 
throwing darts, were employed by Dionysius at the siege of Motya. 
Diodor. 14, 50. 3 Diodor. 14, 18. 



20 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



the words of Diodorus {mptve [Dionysius] 8e7v Tuylam 

Tas ^EttlttoXcls y vvv to irpos tols *E%cl7tvXols virdp^eL 
relxosi) are not less adverse to that opinion : he says — 
not that Hexapylum was built by Dionysius, but that 
in his own time there still existed at Hexapylum a 
part of the original Dionysian enclosure, which doubt- 
less, in the course of the four centuries intervening 
between the times of Dionysius I. and Diodorus, had 
undergone a variety of additions and repairs. 

The precipitous nature of the whole northern side 
of the Syracusan platform, as well as its length, 
agree perfectly with the words of Diodorus : 6 yap 
toitos ovtos Terpafjufjiivos earl 7rpos- apKTov, v7roKprjfJLV09 Be 
iras' /ecu Sia rrjv TpayvTiqTa BvairpoaoBos lie rcov e^coOev 
fiepcov to fjuev fArjfcos scaracTKevdijOev eiri 

GTahlovs TpidtcovTa. The length of the northern side of 
the Syracusan platform, from the northern extremity 
of Achradina at Santa Panagia to Mongibellisi, is ex- 
actly thirty stades. We may conclude therefore that 
Hexapylum defended not the gate at Mongibellisi, 
which was a natural entrance into the enlarged Syra- 
cuse at its western extremity, and cannot be described 
as in the northern walls, but the no less important 
point in the northern walls where the road entered the 
city from Megara, and the maritime parts of Sicily 
to the northward. And this position of Hexapylum 
is amply confirmed by Polybius, Livy, and Plutarch, 1 
as will more fully appear hereafter. 

The etymology of Euryalus or Euryelus (evpvs ^Xos, 
broad nail or knob) is correctly applicable to the 
ridge which terminates Epipolse to the westward ; 
and the castle Euryalus at the western end of that 
ridge is well described by Livy as situated at the ex- 

1 Polyb. 8, 5. Liv. 24, 21 ; 25, 24. Plutarch, Marcell. 18. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



21 



tremity of Syracuse most distant from the sea. 1 The 
position of Euryalus is equally well indicated by Thu- 
cydides, 2 in whose time it was not fortified, but whose 
narrative shows that it was a natural point of access 
to Epipolse, and that it was distant and unseen from 
the Syracuse of that time. 

Euryalus and Hexapylum, therefore, appear to have 
been fortresses for the defence of two of the three 
principal entrances into Syracuse, the former at its 
western extremity, the latter at that point in the 
northern side of the Syracusan platform where the 
maritime road from the northward entered that side. 
This point, as well from the greater facility of ascent as 
from its lying in the direct road from Megara along 
the coast to the central parts of Syracuse, must in all 
ages have been a little above the harbours now called 
Stentino and Scala Greca, from whence the road led 
through Tycha into the agora of Achradina and to 
Ortygia. As no mention occurs of Hexapylum before 
the siege of Syracuse by Marcellus, it was probably 
another of the works for strengthening Syracuse, 
which Archimedes constructed under the orders of 
Hieron II. The gate of Achradina, which was the third 
principal entrance of Syracuse on the land side, may 
possibly have had some fortress for its defence, though 
none is mentioned in history. Evidently, however, it 
was not so much in need of such protection, as the 
approach to it was narrowed on the one side by 
the wall of Neapolis, and on the other by the marsh 
or the sea. 

The relative situations of Hexapylum, Tycha, Nea- 

1 " Tumulus est in extrema parte urbis versus a, mari, viseque immi- 
nens ferenti in agros mediterraneaque insula?, percommode situs ad 
commeatus excipiendos."—- Liv. 25, 25. 2 Thucyd. 6, 97, § 2. 



22 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



polis, and Euryalus, are well indicated by Livy; from 
whom it appears that Hexapylum led immediately 
into Tycha, 1 and that when Marcellus had made his 
way into Epipolae on the northern side through Hexa- 
pylum, he encamped between Tycha and Neapolis, 
and received the submission of those quarters of Syra- 
cuse. Philodemus of Argos, who commanded the 
garrison of Euryalus, finding himself thus cut off from 
Achradina, and without hope of succour, yielded the 
fortress on condition of being allowed to retire unmo- 
lested into lower Syracuse with his garrison. 2 Enough 
therefore, it is hoped, has been stated to show that the 
names Euryalus, Hexapylum, Neapolis, and Tycha are 
rightly placed on the map. 

Ortygia, according to Thucydides, was originally an 
island, although in his time a peninsula ; 3 and it ap- 
pears to have been known as £ the island ' even when 
in its latter state. 4 It was in very early times sur- 
rounded with a very strong wall, 5 of which remains in 
several places still exist. Under the Romans, Ortygia 
seems to have been again a peninsula, and to have 
remained in that state until the modern works and 
ditches were made by the engineers of the Emperor 
Charles V. 6 The transformed isthmus now consists 
of a hornwork within a crownwork, covering a front, 

1 Liv. 24, 21. 2 Liv. 25, 25. 

3 ~2vpaKovcras de rov i^opivov erovs (about 733 B. C.) 'A/r^tas to>v 
'HpaKAeiScov iv Koplv$a> wKicre, ~2iK.ekovs i^ekaaas 7rpS)TOV e/c rrjs vr/crov, 

iv f] VVV OVK€TL TrepiKhv^Opivrj, fj 7T0\lS T] ivTOS icTTLV. TllUCyd. 6, 3, § 2. 

4 Diodor. 14, 7. 5 Diodor. 11, 73. 

6 Fazello relates (p. 83) that he was present in the year 1552, when 
the engineers of Charles V. cut through the isthmus of Ortygia, and 
through a Roman aqueduct which crossed it and terminated at the 
temple of Minerva. An inscription which they discovered showed the 
aqueduct to have been made by order of the Emperor Claudius. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



23 



in the curtain of which are the gates of the modern 
city. The fortifications built by Charles V. being 
commanded from Achradina, were unable to resist 
the Spaniards in 1735. Although the ditches of the 
place, and its outworks, as we now see them, were all 
made at that time, it seems evident that Dionysius I. 
made a communication between the greater and lesser 
harbour, when he converted the isthmus into a for- 
tress ; for we mid in all subsequent times not only 
that Ortygia was generally known by the name of the 
island (77 Nacro?, or insula), but that it was distin- 
guished as such from the fortress, which was called 
the Acropolis of Syracuse, 1 although situated in its 
lowest part. The ditch must have been of the greatest 
utility to Dionysius as a communication between the 
naval arsenal of the lesser harbour, named Aaiaceios, in 
which he constructed 60 ship-houses, and the arsenal 
in the great port, where he built 160 ship-houses, most 
of them capable of containing two ships. 2 Similar ac- 
commodation for ships of war had indeed existed in both 
places in the time of the Athenian expedition, 3 but 
undoubtedly it was not to be compared to the great 
works of Dionysius; and as Ortygia was a peninsula 
at the time of that expedition, we may infer that the 
communication between the two arsenals was then 
carried on by means of a diolcus nearly in the 
position which was afterwards occupied by the western 
front of the acropolis. The fortress of Dionysius 

1 Liv. 24, 21. Plutarch, Timol. 9; 19. Diodor. 16, 11. 

2 Diodor. 14, 7 ; 42. By the words kvk\co rov vvv KaXovfievov 
Xifxevos (14, 42) Diodorus gives reason to believe that in his time 
the works, without the shelter of which Lacceius could not have been 
a safe harbour, were in ruins, and that the great port was the only 
one in use. 3 Thucyd. 7, 22, § 1 ; 25, § 5. 



24 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



contained his palace and gardens, and the mausoleum 
erected by his son ; its walls comprehended also the 
arsenal of port Lacceius : on the west or land side it 
was separated from the city by walls and towers having 
a great fortified entrance, named Pentapylum, before 
which Dionysius erected a lofty rjkLOTpoinov, or solar 
instrument, for the measurement of time, 1 as well as 
extensive bazaars (xPVf^ aTL(JT vp^ a ) an d porticoes (aroal) . 
These formed part of, or were immediately adjacent to 
the agora of Achradina, or principal agora of Syracuse, 
which embraced a great part of the shore towards the 
head of the lesser harbour. 2 

The extent of port Lacceius is shown by the extant 
remains of a tower on the extremity of a shoal which 
lies parallel to the northern side of the walls of the 
modern city, and extends as far as their northern angle. 
The deep water between this tower and another which 
existed on the shoals of the shore of Achradina, but 
of which no remains have yet been discovered, formed 
the entrance into the harbour, and the interval was 
so narrow that it might be closed by chains. These 
were the towers which Agathocles constructed in 
the lesser harbour, and which were inscribed with his 
name. 3 Another of the great works of Agathocles 
was the Hecatontaclinus, or hospital of sixty couches, 
in Ortygia, which was said to have been struck 
by lightning by the avenging gods, because it had 

1 Diodor. 14, 7; 15, 74. Plutarch, Timoleon, 22. Dion. 19, 
29. 

2 Liv. 24, 22. Diodor. 16, 10. Cicer. Verr. Act. h. 5, 37. 

3 Ot re Trapa rov fxiKpbv \ip,£va Trvpyoi, ras p.ev eTriypacpas e'xovres e£ 
erepoyevcov Xldcov, o-rjfiaivovTes rrjv rov KaTacncevdcravTOS avrovs irpoirq- 
yoplav 'AyaSoickeovs. — Diodor. 16, 83. The inscriptions seem to have 
been formed by means of the insertion of stones differing- in colour 
from the rest of the wall. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



25 



been made higher than their temples. 1 In the island 
stood also the public granary, a building of squared 
stone, resembling a fortress by its strength and mag- 
nitude. 2 

The acropolis continued to be the seat of govern- 
ment under the Romans. The palace, the mausoleum, 
and the fortifications of Dionysius had been destroyed 
by Timoleon, who caused buildings adapted to a re- 
publican form of government (StKaarripca) to be erected 
in their place : 3 but Hieron II. again built a palace in 
the same situation, which became the residence of the 
Roman governor after the capture of Syracuse by 
Marcellus. 4 

Of the principal buildings of the lower part of 
Achradina adjacent to the acropolis, in or near the 
agora, namely, the temple of Jupiter Olympius, the Bu- 
leuterium, the Prytaneium, from which Verres carried 
off the Sappho of Silanion, the Dionysian stose, and the 
Timoleonteium, or monument, stoa, and palaestrae of 
Timoleon, 5 nothing certain can be distinguished. Some 
ancient remains which have been supposed to have 
belonged to some of those edifices have rather the 
appearance of works of Roman times. But it is by 
no means improbable that the soil of this lowest part 
of Syracuse is considerably higher than its ancient 
level, and that excavations would throw some light on 
its topography, and disinter some of its antiquities. 

Among the buildings which contributed to the mag- 
nificence of Syracuse were the gymnasia constructed 
by Dionysius I. on the banks of the Anapus, and in 

1 Diodor. 16, 83. 2 Liv. 24, 21. 

3 Plutarch, Timoleon, 22. 4 Cicero. V. sup. p. 3. 

5 Liv. 24, 22, seq. Cicero, Verr. n. 4, 57. Diodor. 14, 7 ; 
41; 16, 83. Plutarch, Timol. c. ult. 

D 



26 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



the city there were several temples of the gods, built 
by order of the same enlightened sovereign, 1 who was 
the second founder of Syracuse, almost as much as 
Pericles was of Athens. We read also of a gymnasium 
and several temples in Tycha, besides the temple of 
Fortune, which gave name to that quarter of the city. 2 
The sepulchre of Gelon and his wife Damareta, daughter 
of Theron of Agrigentum, which was surrounded with 
seven great towers, appears to have stood on the height 
beyond the Anapus, as we are told by Diodorus that 
Himilco, in the year 396 b. c, employed some of its 
materials, together with those of other sepulchres in 
that quarter, in building a wall for the defence of his 
camp at the Olympieium. The towers were destroyed 
about a century afterwards by Agathocles, who envied 
the fame of Gelon. 3 

The principal edifices of ancient Syracuse, of which 
remains are still in existence, are the temples of 
Minerva and Diana in Ortygia, the theatre in Nea- 
poiis, and the temple of Jupiter Olympius at Polichne. 

The ancient building which now forms the body of 
the episcopal church of Santa Maria delle Colonne, 
in the Piazza of Siragusa, is supposed by the modern 
Syracusans to have been the temple of Minerva ; and 
in a private house between the piazza and the north- 
eastern wall of the city there are two columns with 
their architrave, which are supposed to be remains of 
the temple of Diana: and both these designations are 
probably correct ; for although Ortygia was peculiarly 

1 Diodor. 15, 13. 

2 Cicero. V. supra, p. 3. 

3 Diodor. 11, 38; 14, 63. The number of stades (200) between 
Syracuse and the Geloium in the former passage is obviously erro- 
neous ; perhaps it should be SeKoKrw instead of diaKoaiovs. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



27 



sacred to Diana, 1 Minerva was its guardian, and pre- 
sided over its arms and counsels, and, as ttoXlov^os 
would be likely to occupy the highest point of the 
island, which is the position of the church of Santa 
Maria. This elevated situation accords also with a 
custom of the Syracusan sailors on departing from 
Sicily, as related by Athenseus on the authority of 
Polemon. They took on board their ships a cup from 
a hearth or altar of Juno Olympia, situated at the 
outer extremity of Ortygia ; and just as a shield which 
was on the summit of the temple of Minerva was 
about to vanish from their sight, they cast the cup, 
filled with certain sacrificial offerings, into the sea. 
From the same passage of Atheneeus we learn that 
this hearth of Juno Olympia was near a temple of that 
goddess, which appears to have occupied, as w r ell as 
the hearth, a position on the point between the walls 
and the extreme cape, 2 where now stands the castle of 
Maniaki. 

The temple of Minerva was nearly of the same 
dimensions as the larger class of colonial Doric hexa- 
styles at Paestum, Egesta, and Selinus. The columns 
of the peristyle, of w T hich there w T ere fourteen on the 
sides, were 6 feet 8 inches in diameter at the base. 
There w r ere few temples in Greece superior to it in 
materials or magnificence ; it was chiefly remarkable 

1 'Opruylav .... noTapias edos 'ApTepcdos. — Pindar, Pyth. 2, 10. 

'OpTvyia 
Akpviov *Aprefii8os. — Nem. 1, 2. 

2 ILoXe'p,a>v de iv rep TrepX tov Mopvxov iv 2vpaKovo~ais (pr]ar\v, eV aKpq 
Trj vr]o~(p 7rpbs tco ttjs 'OXvp-nias lepa, itcTos tov Teixovs, icrx^pav tlvcl eivcti, 
d(f> rjs cprjal tov KvXiKa vavnToXovaLv dvairXeovTes, p^XP 1 T °v y^vicrQai tt)v 
errl tov vea> Trjs 'Adrjvds dopaTOV ocrTTt'Sa' Kai ovtcos dcpiacriv is ttjv OdXaaaav 
Kepapeav KvXiKa, KaOevTes its avTrjv avdea /cat K-qpia kol XiftavcoTov aTprjTov 
ml aXXa aTTa pera tovtcov dpcopaTa. — Athen. 11,2. (6.) 



28 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



for the beauty of its doors of ivory and gold, and for 
its numerous pictures, of the most valuable of which 
it was despoiled by Verres. 1 It was built by the 
Gamori, who governed Syracuse during the whole of 
the sixth century B.C., and can scarcely be less an- 
cient, therefore, than the middle of that century. 2 
The architect was Agathocles, whose consecrated 
house, named Embrontiaeum, built of the same mate- 
rials as the temple, still existed in the time of Dio- 
dorus. 3 

1 " JEdes Minervse est in insula, de qua, ante dixi, quam Marcellus 
non attigit, quam plenam atque ornatam reliquit ; quae ab isto sic 
spoliata atque direpta est, non ut ab hoste aliquo, qui tamen in bello 
religionum et consuetudinis jura retineret, sed ut a barbaris prse- 
donibus vexata esse videatur. Pugna erat equestris Agathoclis regis 
in tabulis picta prseclare : his autem tabulis interiores templi parietes 
vestiebantur ...... omnes eas tabulas abstulit ; parietes quorum 

ornatus tot ssecula manserat, tot bella effugerat, nudos ac deformatos 
reliquit ...... Viginti et septem prseterea tabulas pulcherrime 

pictas ex eadem sede sustulit ; in quibus erant imagines Sieilise regum 
ac tyrannorum, quse non solum pictorum artificio delectabant sed 

etiam commemoratione hominum et cognitione formarum 

Jam vero quid ego de valvis illius templi commemorem ? 

Confirmare hoc liquido, judices, possum, valvas magnificentiores ex 
auro atque ebore perfectiores nullas unquam ullo tempore fuisse 
...... Ex ebore diligentissime perfecta argumenta erant in 

valvis; ea detrahenda curavit omnia. Gorgonis os pulcherrimum, 
crinitum anguibus, revellit atque abstulit ...... bullas aureas 

omnes ex his valvis, quse erant et multse et graves, non dubitavit 
auferre." — Cicero in Verrem, Act. n. lib. 4, c. 55, 56. 

2 Herodot. 7, 155; Diodor. Exc. lib. 6, p. 549, Wess. The 
Gamori were in power when Sappho fled from Mytilene to Syracuse, 
B.C. 596, (^'Apxovros 'Adrjvrjcrip Kpirlov rod Trporepov, iv SvpaKovaais de 
Tcoepopcov KarexovTcav rr)v dpxrjv, Marmor, Par. lin. 51, 52.) In the 
speech of Appius Claudius, in 491 b. c, the expulsion of the Gamori 
is mentioned as a recent event.— Dionys. Hal. Ant, Rom. 6, 62. 

3 Exc. lib. 6, p. 549. To 'Epppovnaiov was so called because it had 
been struck by lightning, when Agathocles himself perished in the 
flames. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



29 



According to the antiquaries of Syracuse, the temple 
of Minerva was consecrated to Christianity in the 
seventh century of our era, by Zosimus, Bishop of 
Syracuse, in confirmation of which tradition it is 
stated that his name is inscribed on an antique vase 
of white marble, now employed as a baptismal font 
in the church. In truth, however, this vase was 
found in the catacombs. Three lines were inscribed 
upon it, of which the first is illegible ; on the second 
are seen the letters simoy geoaqpoy; on the third, 

TON KPATI. 

siMOY is probably the remains of Zcocrcfiov : but this 
Zosimus, to judge from the form of the letters, could 
not have lived later than the second century of our 
era. 

Local history is more authentic, perhaps, in attri- 
buting the destruction of the roof of the temple of 
Minerva, and the displacement of many of the columns 
from their perpendicular, to an earthquake which threw 
down the campanile upon the building, on Easter day, 
1100. In front, the ancient structure is entirely con- 
cealed by a modern fagade in the Italian taste. On 
the sides the ancient columns are partially seen, im- 
mured in the modern w T all of the church. 

Of the temple of Diana there remains nothing more 
than two adjoining Doric columns with their architrave. 
This edifice appears to have been somewhat smaller 
than the temple of Minerva, as the columns are half a 
foot less in their lower diameter ; they are a trifle 
taller in proportion to their diameter, being 4^ diame- 
ters, including the capitals, whereas those of Minerva 
are 4J. In other respects they have the appearance 
of a greater antiquity ; the intercolumniation is less 
than the lower diameter of the columns : they have no 



30 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



more than sixteen flu tings, and the height of the 
architrave is greater than the lower diameter of the 
column. In the temple of Minerva the intercolumni- 
ation is ^ greater than the lower diameter, the height of 
the architrave is less than that diameter, and there are 
twenty flu tings, the usual number in the Doric order. 

The temple of Jupiter Olympius at Polichne stood 
on a rocky eminence rising from the south-western 
side of the plain immediately above the junction of 
the rivers Cyane and Anapus, at a distance of 3000 
yards from the site of the Agragian gate of Syracuse, 
which agrees with the Roman mile and a half at 
which Livy places it. 1 The monolith shafts of two 
columns wanting their capitals are still standing. 
These columns, one of which belonged to one of the 
fronts, and the other to one of the sides of the build- 
ing, have sixteen flutings, and a diameter at the 
base of 5 feet 10 inches, with an intercolumniation of 
7 feet. About the year a.d. 1600 there were seven 
columns standing. 2 The temple appears to have been 
a hexastyle about 10 feet narrower in front than that 
of Minerva. 

The circumstance of there having been two temples 
of Jupiter Olympius at Syracuse tends to create a 
difficulty in its ancient topography. Probably there 
existed from early times a sanctuary of Jupiter in the 
agora of Achradina ; but as it was not until the reign 
of Hieron the Second that a magnificent temple of 
Jupiter Olympius was there constructed, the only 
Olympieium mentioned in history before that time 
was that of Polichne. This Jupiter having borne the 
epithet of Urius, or lord of the winds, as well as that 



1 Liv. 24, 33. Cf.Diodor. 13, 7. 2 Cluver. Sicil. Ant. p. 179. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



31 



of Olympius, may have been usually distinguished by 
the former title from the Jupiter Olympius of Achra- 
dina after the time of Hieron. It was in the latter 
Olympieium that were suspended the Gallic and Illy- 
rian spoils which the Roman Senate presented to 
Hieron. 1 The Olympieium of Polichne was the 
temple plundered by Verres of its statue of Jupiter 
Urius, which rivalled, says the orator, the Jupiter 
Urius of the Bosphorus (in Ponti oris et angustiis), 
as well as that of Jupiter Hypatus, or Imperator, 
brought by Flamininus from Macedonia. 2 

The temples of Diana and of Jupiter Urius are 
probably, as well as that of Minerva, works of the 
sixth century b. c, during the government of the 
Gamori. 

In every Greek city the prevailing worship, or in 
other words, the denomination of the temples, may be 
deduced from its coins. On those of Syracuse we find 
the heads of Jupiter, Neptune, Minerva, Apollo, Diana, 
Ceres, Proserpine, Hercules, and Arethusa. There is 
a coin also which records an action of Leucaspis, 
who was a Sicilian contemporary of Hercules, and, 
according to Diodorus, received heroic honours, and 
who probably had a heroum at Syracuse. In addition 
to these sanctuaries, we find temples of Bacchus and 
of iEsculapius alluded to by Cicero, who accuses 
Verres of having carried away a statue of Paean from 
the former, and from the latter a statue of Aristaeus, 
son of Bacchus, the reputed inventor of oil. 3 Two of 

1 Diodor. 16, 83. Cicer. Verr. n. 4, 53. V. sup. p. 3. Liv. 24, 21. 

2 Cicer. ibid. cc. 57, 58. There is an epigram from the site 
of the temple of Jupiter Urius in the Bosphorus, in the British 
Museum. 

3 Verr. n. 4, 57. 



32 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



the most renowned of the temples of Syracuse were 
those of Demeter and Cora, or Ceres, and Proserpine, 1 
of which two divinities, the heads occur more fre- 
quently than any others on the coins of Syracuse. 
Their temples were built or renewed by Gelon about 
the year 480 b. c. 2 They stood in the unfortified 
suburb of Temenitis, and hence were exposed to be 
plundered by the Carthaginians in the year 396 b. c, 
but sustained probably no great damage on that occa- 
sion. 3 They were afterwards enclosed within the walls 
of Neapolis ; for Cicero describes Neapolis as con- 
taining the theatre, the temenus of Apollo, and the 
temples of Ceres and Libera. 4 There is reason to 
believe, therefore, that these temples were situated on 
the summit of the south-western cliffs, to the west- 
ward of the temenus of Apollo. 

From some circumstances in the history of the 
Athenian siege of Syracuse, which will be adverted to 
hereafter, it seems to follow that the temple of Her- 
cules stood at Palazzelli, the highest and most central 
part of the southern cliffs, where vestiges of some 
considerable buildings still exist ; and there are other 
foundations excavated in the rock on the summit of the 
hill immediately above Tremiglie, which resemble the 
platforms of temples. It appears, therefore, that a 
succession of magnificent buildings bordered the brow 

1 Kovprj 6* a avv p,arp\ TroKvKkrjpoov 'E<pvpata>v 

EtXa^a? peya aarv ivap vdaai AvcripeXeias. — -Theocr. Idyl. 16, V. 83. 

2 Diodor. 11, 26. 

3 Diodor. 14, 63. The word eo-vXrjo-ev, the desultory nature of the 
attack of Himilco, and the speedy vengeance of the goddesses, lead to 
this conclusion. 

4 Cora, or Proserpine, under the name of Libera, was supposed 
by the Romans to be the consort of Bacchus (Liber) in inferis. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



33 



of the south-western cliffs of Syracuse, from Achradina 
to the hill of Euryalus, rivalling that similar chain of 
monuments at Agrigentum the remains of which still 
attest the admirable taste and intelligence of the Greeks 
in the position and arrangement of their public build- 
ings. 

Next to the temple of Minerva, the finest relic of 
autonomous Syracuse is the Theatre. The time of its 
foundation may with great probability be ascribed to 
that period of advancing wealth and civilization which 
followed the victory gained over the Carthaginians by 
Gelon at Himera, at the time of the Persian invasion 
of Greece. We may presume that even before that 
time the Syracusans had possessed some place of dra- 
matic exhibition, though it may have been no better 
than such a wooden construction as those 'Upia, the 
falling of which at Athens in 500 b.c caused the com- 
mencement of the Dionysiac theatre. 1 Epicharmus 
and Phormis had taught comedy at Syracuse before 
that time, and the former of these poets continued to 
exhibit his works on the Syracusan stage in the reign 
of Hieron I., who succeeded his brother Gelon in the 
year 478 b. c. 2 Ten years afterwards iEschylus, ac- 
cused by some of the Athenians of irreligion, and hurt 
at having been defeated in tragedy by Sophocles, re- 
tired for a time to Syracuse; and it appears to have 
been one of the consequences of this visit that, in 
exhibiting his trilogy of the Oresteia after his return to 
Athens, he appended to the three tragedies a mime 
named Proteus. 3 

1 'Topography of Athens,' 2nd edit. pp. 10, 247. 

2 Aristot. Poetic. 3, 5 ; Suidas in 'Eirixappos, ®6pp.is ; Clinton, Fast 
Hell. i. p. 21. 

3 Vit. iEschyl. — Plutarch. Cimon. 8. Sch. Aristoph. Ran. v. 
1155. Clinton, Fasti Hell. i. pp. 39, 45. 

E 



34 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



From a consideration of these circumstances it be- 
comes highly probable that the Syracusans were not 
long behind the Athenians in undertaking the con- 
struction of their theatre, though in its progress 
towards completion there were many causes of inter- 
ruption from which the Athenians were exempt. If its 
commencement may safely be attributed to the reign 
of Hieron the First, who was renowned for his pa- 
tronage and encouragement of art and letters, there is 
reason to believe that it was not finished till many 
years later. Eustathius, giving some examples (in 
his commentaries on the Odyssey) of nouns mas- 
culine ending in a f similar to the XinroTa Nea-rcop of 
Homer, mentions Aratus of Soli, a celebrated poet and 
critic of the third century b. c, as having stated on the 
authority of Sophron, the Syracusan nLfxoypafyos, that 
the theatre of Syracuse was completed by an architect 
named Democopus, who, having presented his fellow 
citizens with perfumes upon the occasion, obtained the 
surname of Myrilla. 1 

Sophron was born about 480 b. c., 2 and in the year 
467, when Hieron died, could not have been much 

1 Kcu SvpaKoaiov to 6 MvpiXXa' ol \is\xvr\o-Qai Xeyet (Aratus) tov 

ScoCppoVd, l(TTOpS)V KOI OTl TOV "SvpaKO&'lOV TOVTOV KVpLOV, ArjflOKOTrOS r\v 

dpxiTeKToov' inel Se TeXecriovpyrjo-as to Oearpov p,vpov rois iavrov 7roXirai? 
dupeipe, MvpikXa eTreKkrjdr). — Eustath. ap. Od. r. v. 68. Aratus lived 
at the court of Antigonus Gonatas, and, like Eustathius, was a com- 
mentator on the Odyssey. The 8idp0a>o-is 'Aparao? is probably the 
extant text of the Odyssey. On the works of Aratus, see Clinton, 
Fasti Hell. n. p. 498. 

2 Tots xp° vocs V v KaT <* Sep^rjv Kai Evpinldrjv (Suidas in TZaxfipav). 
This can only mean that the birth of Sophron coincided nearly with 
that of Euripides, who was born in the year b. c. 480 : Xerxes is 
named because the Persians were then in Greece. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



35 



more than 13 years of age. 1 The theatre therefore 
could hardly have been finished in that reign ; but 
undoubtedly it was completed before the Athenian 
expedition in 415, as this occurrence must have inter- 
rupted all such works, and in 406 we find the theatre 
employed for public spectacles. In this year Diony- 
sius L, returning from Gela to Syracuse with the ob- 
ject of obtaining from the Syracusans the appointment 
of o-Tparyyos against the Carthaginians, selected for his 
time of entering the city the hour when the people 
quitted the theatre, his design having obviously been 
that of entering the gates accompanied by a large body 
of the principal citizens. The words of Diodorus, who 
was well acquainted with the locality, not only indi- 
cate this intention, but are perfectly in agreement with 
the relative situations of the theatre and the Agragian 
gate, as well as with the fact of the theatre having 
been at that time excluded from the walls of the city. 2 
As no kind of building more readily admits of en- 
largement and of improvement in convenience or 
decoration than a Greek theatre, and in particular as 
it may at any time be extended by the addition of seats 
in the upper part, there can be no certainty that the 
dimensions of the Syracusan theatre in the middle of 
the fifth century b. c. were so great as present appear- 
ances give proofs of their having become at some 
later period. The Dionysiac theatre of Athens, begun 

1 The time of Sophron's death is uncertain, but about 392 B.C. we 
find his son and his successor in the drama, Xenarchus, satirizing in 
one of his mimes the Rhegini, who were then at war with Dionysius I. 
— Diodor. 14, 40 et 111 ; Phot, et Suid. in 'Prjylvovs. 

2 Qeas S' ovarjs ev rais SvpaKovcrais, rrju a>pav rrjs diraXXay^s rrjs €K tov 
Bearpov, i:apr\v els Trjv nokiv' crvvbpapovTcov 8e ra>u o^Xwi/ in avrov Kai 
7rvv$avop.€VQ)V nepl ra>v Kapx^ovimv, &C. — Diodor. 13, 94. 



36 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



soon after the year 500 b. c, received improvements 
and decorations until 330 b. c. 1 

Some remains of the highest seats, excavated in the 
rocks, indicate that at one time the theatre of Syracuse 
extended upwards as far as a road, cut also in the 
rock, which was on a level with the summit of the 
theatre, and along which are some artificial sepulchral 
caverns. On this supposition the rows of seats must 
have been more than sixty in number, and the theatre 
consequently capable of containing more than 24,000 
spectators, or equal in capacity to some of the greatest 
theatres in Greece. 2 There was no more than one 
prascinction, which was between the twenty-third and 
twenty-fourth seats from the orchestra, and was 1\ 
feet in width ; but in the lower division there was a 
row of seats having a higher back than the others, and 
which with all those below it were covered originally 
with slabs of white marble, 3 the loss of which has now 

1 * Topography of Athens/ 2nd edition, pp. 10, 599. 

2 See 'Topography of Athens,' 2nd edition, p. 521. The enor- 
mous capacity of some of the Greek theatres had probably more in 
view political assemblies than dramatic exhibitions, although the 
latter was the original, and continued to be the chief ostensible 
intention of them, as their dedication to Bacchus and their decorative 
sculpture almost invariably show. At Athens the Dionysiac theatre, 
after its completion, was more commonly employed than the Pnyx 
for political meetings; and at Syracuse there is ample proof that 
the theatre was the ordinary place of public assembly. — See Plutarch. 
Dion, c. 38; Timol. cc. 34, 38; Justin, 22, 2. 

3 These marble coverings and some other particulars of the scene 
and orchestra were discovered in an excavation made in the year 
1839 by a Palermitan Commission of Antiquities, of which the Duke 
of Serradifalco has given us the results. (Antichita di Sicilia, iv. 
p. 140, seq.) It may have been in consequence of discoveries made 
on that occasion that the two walls terminating the cavea, which in 
Mr. Donaldson's plan ('Antiquities of Athens,' &c. iv. 48) are oblique 
to the scene, are made parallel to it by the Duke of Serradifalco. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



37 



rendered those seats lower than the rest : the high 
back occurs between the eleventh and twelfth seats 
from the orchestra, and doubtless marked the termi- 
nation of the privileged seats. 

On the upper side of the praecinction there was a 
wall, or podium, 5 feet in height, having a projecting 
cornice ; below which, between the scalar, which divide 
the cavea into nine cunei, there was a succession of 
inscriptions in large letters, each in a single line. 
Two of these inscriptions are still perfect, and three of 
them preserve a sufficient number of letters to render 
their restoration almost certain. As to the other four, 
there remains only the certainty that they once ex- 
isted : there can be little doubt that they all served to 
give name to the several upper cunei of the theatre. 
The central cuneus bore the name of Jupiter Olym- 
pius : the four on the western side, or to the left 
of the spectator looking from the scene, appear to 
have been named from the royal family reigning when 
the inscriptions were engraved, and those on the 
eastern side, or to his right, from the protecting deities. 
Beginning at the western wing, I copied as follows : 

On the second, BASIAIZZA2 NHPHIAoZ 

On the third, BAZIAISZAZ 4>IAIZTIAoZ 

On the fourth, (B)AXIA(Eo£ IEPH)NoZ 

On the fifth, or central cuneus, AI(o)Z °AYM(ni°Y) 

On the seventh, (H)PAKA(EoZ EY)<t>PoN(|oY) 

The letters of the words BaaCklaaas $i\i<ttI&o$ are 
precisely similar in form to those on the Philistidia, 1 
or Syracusan coins of silver, which bear the head of 
Philistis : the resemblance of the sigma and the omi- 
cron deserves in particular to be noticed, the former 

1 QiXta-rldiov — voiiia-pLa rt. Hesych. in v. 



38 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



being Z and not ^ as in earlier times, and the o being 
smaller than the other letters : there can be no ques- 
tion, therefore, as to the identity of the person named 
on the theatre and on those beautiful Syracusan medals. 
Nevertheless, no mention of Philistis occurs in history. 
But Nereis, whose name occupies the next cuneus, we 
know to have been a daughter of Pyrrhus, king of Epi- 
rus, and that she became wife of Gelon, son of Hieron 
II., and mother of Hieronymus, the successor of Hieron. 
The name on the fourth cuneus will admit of the 
restoration TEAHNOZ as well as lEPHNOS; but it is 
hardly credible that Gelon should ever have borne the 
same title as his father, who survived him. Two con- 
jectures may be offered as to Philistis : she may have 
been one of the wives of Hieron, who, in the course 
of a life extended beyond the age of ninety, may very 
possibly have had a wife whose name does not occur 
in the imperfect records which remain to us of Sicilian 
history ; or she may have been a daughter of Hieron, 
whose earlier death may have saved her from the fate 
of the survivors of the family of Hieron, when they 
were all cruelly murdered by the party in power after 
the death of Hieronymus, — an event from which we 
learn that Damareta, the daughter of Hieron, had 
been married to Andranodorus ; Heraclea, another 
daughter, to Zoippus ; and Harmonia, daughter of 
his son Gelon, to Themistius. 1 Of the two preceding 
conjectures as to Philistis, the former is perhaps pre- 
ferable, inasmuch as this name is not very likely to 
have belonged to the royal family, but indicates 
rather a descent from Philistus, the celebrated histo- 
rian, who was minister of Dionysius II. 



1 Liv. 24, 25 ; 26. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



39 



Hieron the Second, besides having constructed the 
temple of Jupiter Olympius in the agora, which has 
already been mentioned, built near the theatre an altar 
which was a stade in length. 1 An excavation made 
between the theatre and amphitheatre by the Paler- 
mitan Commission, in 1839, discovered this altar. It 
was raised on steps, and its length appears to have 
been about 640 English feet, or 33 feet more than a 
stade. Diodorus adds, that its breadth and height 
were in proportion to its length ; but as the breadth 
was not more than about 60 English feet, it certainly 
had not in this respect the usual proportion of altars, 
and particularly did not resemble another great altar, 
that of Jupiter at Olympia, which was a square of 
about 80 feet. 2 

Among the most remarkable extant antiquities of 
autonomous Syracuse may be mentioned the latomiae 
or quarries, which served as prisons and places of penal 
labour, 3 and in some of which the Athenians were 
imprisoned after their defeat under Nicias and Demos- 
thenes. There is a succession of these quarries along 
the crest of the heights of Achradina, extending with 
intervals from the theatre to the exterior sea. Others 
are seen on the ridge of Euryalus to the eastward of 
Mongibellisi ; and they are altogether so extensive 
that the materials of a large portion of the buildings 
of ancient Syracuse may have been extracted from 
them. iElian ascribes to the latomiae of Epipolae 
the magnitude of a stade in length and two plethra 
in breadth ; 4 but these dimensions are hardly suffi- 

* 6 TrkrjcrLOV tov 6earpov /3a>/x.or, to juev firjuos cov araSiov, to d' v\jros Kai 
nXdros e^cov tovtco Kara \6yov. — Diodor. 14, 83. 

2 V. ' Peloponnesiaca/ p. 36. 

3 Diodor. 15, 6. 4 ^Elian, Var. Hist. 12, 44. 



40 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



cient for any of the ancient quarries still remaining 
at Syracuse. 

Nearest to the theatre is the excavation called II 
Orecchio di Dionysio (the Ear of Dionysius), by 
means of the form of which the tyrant is supposed to 
have been enabled, in a chamber above, to have heard 
the voices of those who were imprisoned below. This 
is doubtless one of those vulgar fables to be met with 
in every ancient city of eminence, from Jerusalem to 
Rome, which originated in the dark ignorance of the 
middle ages. 

If the excavation has any resemblance to an ear, it 
is not to a human ear, but to that of a horse. There 
is a similar excavation at the easternmost quarry, or 
that of the Capuccini. Both of them were perhaps 
formed to facilitate the raising of stones from the 
quarry to the upper surface. 

The principal monument of Roman Syracuse is the 
amphitheatre. Its arena is 233 feet in length and 132 
in breadth, which is 14 feet longer and 2 feet broader 
than that of Verona. What may have been its 
altitude, or the capacity of its upper part, there 
are no means of determining ; as the podium which 
encloses the arena, and ten of the lowest seats of the 
northern side, cut like those of the theatre out of the 
rock, are, together with a few fragments of the con- 
structions of the opposite side, the only remains of 
the amphitheatre now extant. 

It was constructed, probably, soon after the arrival 
of the Roman colony sent to Syracuse by Augustus; 1 
for gladiatorial exhibitions at Syracuse are alluded to 
by writers of the time of Tiberius and Nero. 2 

1 Strabo, p. 270. Dion Cas. 54, 7. Plin. H. N. 3, 8. 

2 Valer. Maxim. 1, 7. Tacit. Ann. 13, 49. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



41 



The ruins and vestiges of Syracuse are monumental 
confirmations of the truth of history as to its magni- 
tude and importance, and justify the belief that it 
was truly reputed to have been "the greatest of Greek 
cities;" 1 for although Athens, including the Long 
Walls, had a greater periphery by about 26 stades, 
its superficial measurement was not so great as that of 
Syracuse. Strabo, however, is not correct in assigning 
to this city a circumference of 180 stades. The en- 
tire circuit, including Neapolis, is not more than 14 
English miles, or about 122 stades. 



During the five centuries of autonomous Syracuse 
there were two celebrated historical occurrences which 
more particularly derive explanation from its topogra- 
phy and extant monuments ; namely, the Athenian 
siege in the Peloponnesian war, and the capture of 
the city by Marcellus, — the closing scene of the 
autonomy. But as there are some other events in the 
history of Syracuse upon which light is thrown by its 
topography and antiquities, I may possibly render 
these ' Notes 1 less imperfect by adverting to those 
events as they shall occur in the course of a brief 
summary of the Syracusan annals. 

Herodotus and Thucydides are the best authorities 
for the early history of this city ; and for the less 
ancient, Diodorus, who deserves confidence as a Si- 
cilian, and as having derived his information from 
other native writers who preceded him ; namely, 
Antiochus, Athanis, Timaeus, Callias, and Antandrus, 

1 Isocrat. Nicocl. 6. Cicer. Verr. n. 4, 52. V. s. p. 3. Diodor. 
15, 13. V. s. p. 11. 

F 



42 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



brother of King Agathocles. He refers also occasion- 
ally to Theopompus and Ephorus. Plutarch in his 
life of Dion, and in its continuation, the life of Timo- 
leon, consulted some of the same authorities. 

So rapid was the aggrandizement of the Corinthians 
under Archias, who about 733 b. c. expelled the earlier 
colony of Pelasgic Italians, or Siculi, 1 who had occupied 
the island Ortygia, that in less than 1 50 years from that 
time the new colony had founded Acrse, Casmense, 
Camarina, Camarinsean Morgantia, Talaria, and Enna; 2 
and they continued to increase in power and prosperity 
under the aristocratical government of the Gamori, or 
descendants of the landholders of the colony of Archias, 
until the latter were expelled by a popular movement, 
about the year 493 b. c. 3 It was under the pretence of 
restoring the Gamori that, in the year 491 b. c, Gelon, 
quitting Gela, of which he had acquired the tyranny, 
obtained a similar authority in Syracuse, giving up 
the government of Gela to his brother Hieron, and 
recruiting the population of Syracuse from Gela and 
Camarina. 4 By these and similar means (says He- 
rodotus) Gelon became a fieyas rvpawos. 

When the alliance of Persia and Carthage threat- 
ened to extinguish the Hellenic system, both in 
Greece and Sicily, and thus at once to arrest the 
progress of arts, letters, and philosophy, Gelon was 
one of the principal instruments in defeating the 

1 St/ceXot and 'ItoKqX are probably no more than dialectic varieties 
of the same word. 

2 Thucyd. 4, 65 ; 6, 4. Theopomp. ap. Stephan. in TaXapia. 
Stephan. in^Ewa. 

3 Herodot. 7, 155. Dionys. Hal. Antiq. Rom. 6, 62. 

4 Gelon was descended from Telinas, one of the oIkio-tcu, or chiefs 
of the Rhodian colony which occupied Gela about the year 688 b. c. 
Telinas was named from his native island Telus, near Rhodes, and his 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



43 



designs of the barbarians. It happened fortunately 
that he had refused to lead the forces of Syracuse 
to Greece, unless he were to have the chief com- 
mand of the entire Greek armament either by sea or 
by land, and that while the Athenians objected to 
the former part of his alternative, the Lacedaemonians 
were equally determined to insist upon being the 
leaders on shore. Hence Gelon was enabled to op- 
pose the Carthaginian invasion of Sicily with the whole 
force of Syracuse and its dependencies, added to that 
of Agrigentum under Theron, and to gain at Himera 
a victory so complete, that scarcely a man returned 
to tell the tale at Carthage. 

According to Herodotus, the battle was fought on 
the day of Salamis; 1 Diodorus says on that of Ther- 
mopylae, a date which he found probably in one of the 
ancient historians whom he followed, and with the 
feelings of a Sicilian preferred ; for the priority, as 
he remarks, was at once an example to the Greeks 
and an auxiliary to their success. With the same 
feelings he adds, but not untruly, that while the glory 
of Gelon rivalled that of Themistocles, the former had 
the advantage of having destroyed both branches of 
the hostile armament at a single blow, and had filled 
Sicily with Punic slaves ; and that whereas Pausanias 
and Themistocles, the successful commanders of the 
Greeks, were, the one slain by his own countrymen, 

descendant Gelon from his native city, or from the river, the indi- 
genous name of which had been applied to the new settlement, as 
had occurred also at Syracuse, Agragas, Himera, Selinus, Camarina, 
and other Sicilian cities, (Duris ap. Stephan. in 1 ' Knpayavres,) probably 
to avoid a preference of any one of the cities from which the asso- 
ciated colonists came.— Herodot. 7, 153. Thucyd. 6, 4. 
1 Herodot. 7, 166. 



44 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



the other compelled to owe the support of his latter 
years to the generosity of his great opponent, Gelon 
enjoyed the chief authority at Syracuse to the day of 
his death, 1 left it to his three brothers in succession, 2 
and was honoured with heroic worship to the latest 
period of history. 

1 According to Oiodorus (11, 23), Gelon reached old age (eyyrj- 
pda-at rfj fiao-tXela); but this, although possible, does not very well 
agree with his having held the tyranny of Syracuse no more than 
seven years, and with his having been suddenly cut off (neaoXa^Oels 
top $\ov V7r6 rrjs TreTTpcofjLevrjs) while building a temple of Ceres at Enna, 
nor is it very consistent with his brothers having held the tyranny 
twelve years after his death, or w T ith his brother Polyzelus having 
married his widow Damareta (Timseus ap. Sch. Pindar. Ol. 2, 29). 
The text of Diodorus is defective where mention is made of the 
temple of Ceres built by Gelon, and where iEtna is named as the 
town. There was no town of ^Eltna at that time. The iEtna of Pindar 
(Pyth. 1. Nem. 9) was Catana, named iEtna by Hieron I. when he 
placed there a colony (Diodor. 11, 49). Seventeen years afterwards, 
this colony was forced to retire to Ennesia (11, 76), on the southern 
side of Mount iEtna, about 15 miles n. w. of Catana. Thenceforth 
Ennesia was named iEtna, and of this iEtna coins are extant. 

2 "Qcrre Kai rpcalv rrjs oIkicis etceivov rrjv dpxW 8ia(pvXax6rjvai. — Diodor. 
11, 23. Polyzelus, however, the third son of Deinomenes, was no 
more than <TrpaTr]y6i, which he became by desire of the dying Gelon, 
while Hieron held the chief authority (Timaeus ap. Sch. Pindar. 2, 
29 ; Diodor. 11, 48). But Polyzelus shared with his brothers in the 
glory of the day of Himera, and was one of the dedicators of a 
golden tripod at Delphi, according to the following epigram, attri- 
buted to Simonides : 

&rjp\ TeXcov 'lepcova, HoXvfyXov, Qpa<rv(3ovXov 

Ualdas Aeipopevovs rbv Tpiirob' dvOepevai, 
'E£ eKarbv Xirpcov Kai irevrqKovTa raXavrcav 

Aapziov xpwov, rds be/carets dexdrav, 
Bdpftapa viKrjcravres Wvrj, TroXXrjv Traparrx^ 

2vppaxov"~EXXr)(nv x eL P « eXevdepirjv. — Anthol. 1, p. 134. 
Aapelov xP vcro ^' — P ure gold, — m reference to the purity of the 
Persian daric, which, at that time, was almost the only gold coin 
known in Greece. Besides this joint dedication of the four brothers 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



45 



The most important event in the reign of Hieron, 
brother and successor of Gelon, was the victory gained, 
b. c. 474, by the Syracusan ships, sent to the assistance 
of Cumae, over the fleet of the Tyrrhenians, then the 
greatest naval power in the ancient world, and who, 
from this circumstance, gave name to the sea on the 
western side of Italy. 1 But Hieron is still more re- 
nowned as having been a zealous and enlightened 
patron of letters and the arts, at a time when he was 
rather setting an example to Athens than following its 
steps in this brightest path of Grecian glory. 



(at Syracuse ?), there was another tripod, weighing 26 talents, made 
from the same Carthaginian spoils, which was presented by Gelon 
to Apollo of Delphi (Diodor. 11, 26). As to the value or weight of 
the Sicilian talent of gold, we learn from the inscriptions of Tauro- 
menium (V. Boeckh, C. Ins. Gr. Nos. 5640, 5641), that public 
accounts in Sicily were usually kept in talents of copper, each of 120 
litrae or pounds ; on comparing which with the third line of the epi- 
gram, we may infer that a talent of gold was similarly divided. 
Now although the litra of silver was no more than a representative 
of the pound of copper, it became the unit of the silver coinage of 
Syracuse, and probably that of the gold money also, when the Syra- 
cusans began to coin in that metal. The talent of gold seems there- 
fore to have weighed 120 of these litrae of 13'4 grains, or 1608 
grains, or 24 Attic drachmas . On this supposition the tripod of the 
four brothers weighed 14'2 pounds, equal to about £ 720 of our 
present gold currency ; and the whole metallic spoil of Himera (the 
tripod having been a hundredth part, ras de<dras SeKarav) amounted 
to £ 72,000, equivalent to a much larger sum of the present time. 
If this should appear a small amount, it must be remembered that 
a large proportion of the Punic valuables was destroyed in the ships. 

1 Of this victory there is an interesting monument in the British 
Museum, namely, one of the helmets dedicated by Hieron at Olympia 
on this occasion, and thus inscribed: BIARON O <EINO/ v \E- 

NEOS KAI TOI SVRAkOSIOI TOI <l TVRANP 
APO KVMA^ — 'Hieron, the son of Deinomenes, and the Syra- 
cusans, (dedicate) to Jupiter (these) Tyrrhenian things from Cyma/ 



46 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



Hieron, after a reign of eleven years, was succeeded 
by Thrasybulus, the youngest son of Deinomenes, 
whose conduct speedily caused his expulsion from 
Syracuse. His army of foreigners and mercenaries 
was opposed by Syracusans, assisted from Gela, 
Agrigentum, Selinus, Himera, and other cities. The 
tyrant held Nasus or the island Ortygia, and Achradina; 
his opponents were in possession of Tycha, at that 
time an unfortified village or suburb. Thrasybulus 
was beaten by sea, lost many triremes, and with the 
remainder retired to Nasus : he then advanced with 
his land forces from Achradina, fought with the enemy 
in the suburbs (eV roh irpoaareloLs) , x and, having been 
beaten, retreated into Achradina, and there made a 
treaty with his opponents, according to which he 
retired in exile to Locri. 

A colossal statue was erected on this occasion to 
Jupiter the Liberator (Ail 'EXevOeplw), and games were 
established named Eleutheria. These games gave rise 
to an insurrection of the new citizens, who had been 
introduced by Gelon, and who, to the number of 
7000, now found themselves excluded, on account of 
their foreign origin, from all offices, and, at length, 
from the public feast of the Eleutheria. They seized 
upon Achradina and Nasus, both of which were well 
fortified. 2 The Syracusans had the advantage by land, 
the foreigners at sea ; but at length, being straitened 
for provisions, they partook probably (for Diodorus has 
not expressly mentioned it) the fate of the intruding 
citizens of several other cities, who were banished, and 
retired chiefly to Messana. 3 

1 Diodor. 11, 68. 

2 afjL(f)OTepa)V tcov tottcov tovtcov e\6vTa)v Xbiov Ter^o? KaXcos KarecrKcvaa/JLe- 

vov— Diodor. 11, 73. 3 Diodor. 11, 76. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



47 



The expulsion of Thrasybulus after one year's reign 
was followed by sixty years of prosperity under repub- 
lican institutions, such as those which raised a great 
number of the states of Greece to the greatest height 
of tranquillity, power, and civilization they ever at- 
tained, and of which the limits were the Persian and 
Peloponnesian wars. There cannot be a better proof 
of the prosperity to which Syracuse had arrived at the 
end of that period, than its successful resistance to 
Athens, when the two great rivals 'in Greece had 
brought the greater part of the Hellenic world into 
their quarrel, and when Syracuse became the principal 
object of Athenian ambition and hostility. 

It was in the 17th and 18th years of the Pelopon- 
nesian war (b. c. 415, 414) that the Athenians under- 
took that expedition against Syracuse which had in view 
the subjugation of all Sicily, but which ended in the 
total discomfiture of the entire armament, and led to 
the capture of Athens itself by the Lacedaemonians. 

Of the Greek cities of Sicily founded about three 
centuries before this time, (namely, Naxus, Syracuse, 
Megara, Gela, and Messana,) all except Megara 1 were 
still flourishing, and all, including Megara, had founded 
colonies in other parts of Sicily, some of which had 
even rivalled their parent cities. 2 Syracuse itself had 
not yet attained above half the area given to it by 
Dionysius, but even then it was between nine and ten 
miles in circumference. 

In the autumn of the 2nd year of the 91st Olympiad, 
(b.c 415,) the Athenians effected their first landing 

1 a t]v epr)[xa, aTtixovra Svpaicovcrcov ovre ttXovv 7roXvv ovre 686v. — 
Thucyd. 6, 49, § 5. 

2 Thucyd. 6, 3, seq. 



48 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



near the Olympieium, {Kara to 'OXvjjLTrielov), 1 a place 
which had been pointed out to them by the Syra- 
cusan deserters as secure against the cavalry of the 
enemy, whose superiority in this force was very 
great. The position was protected by woods, marshes, 
precipices, walls, and houses ; and there were trees 
which afforded materials for making an intrench- 
ment and palisading round the ships {irapa rds vavs 
aravpco/jLa hrrfeav) . 2 At Dascon, the weakest point of 
the position, they constructed a fortress formed of 
rough stones (xldoi? "koydSrjv) and wood ; and they 
broke down the bridge of the Anapus. Though 
Dascon is not again named by Thucydides, there can 
be little hesitation in placing it at the projection in 
the middle of the bay opposite to Ortygia, which sepa- 
rates the low shore at the mouth of the Anapus from 
the bay of Madalena or Milocca, which Diodorus 3 
describes as top koXttov top Ada-Kcova. The trees grew, 
probably, on the marshy bottom and plain between the 
cliffs of Olympieium and the Anapus, and were thus 
at hand for forming a stockade to protect the ships, as 
well as for constructing the fortress of Dascon, which 
protected the right of the Athenian position. 

In the evening of the day on which the Athenians 
had landed, the Syracusan cavalry, returning from a 
fruitless expedition to Catana, whither they had been 
led by a stratagem of the enemy, advanced towards 
the temple of Jupiter Olympius, and were followed 
soon afterwards by the infantry. Around the temple 
there was a iroXlyvr] or small town : 4 the temple itself 
seems not to have been in possession of the Athenians, 

1 Thueyd. 6, 65, 2. 2 66, 2. 3 12, 13. 

4 Polichne is employed by Diodorus as the proper name of this 
place. Diodor. 13, 7 ; 14, 72. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



49 



but the houses and the cliffs which extended from 
the Olympieium to Dascon afforded cover to their 
line. The Syracusan army, finding the Athenians not 
disposed to attack, retired behind the road which led 
from Syracuse to Helorus, and encamped (dvaxcoprio-av- 

res teal 8ta/3dvT€9 rrjv 'EXcaptvrjv 6Bov, rjvXlaavro, Thucyd. 

6, 66, ad fin.). 

The bridge of the Anapus, destroyed by the Athe- 
nians, was probably in the place where the remains 
of an ancient bridge are still seen, a little below the 
junction of the Anapus and Cyane ; and it would 
seem, from the words just cited, that the Helorine way 
branched off to the right immediately beyond the 
bridge, leaving Polichne and the temple on the left. 
It would seem also, from the Syracusans having re- 
tired behind the Helorine way, that the valley of 
Cyane was in those days better drained towards the 
sea than it is at present : on the contrary, the plain 
appears to have been more marshy, both to the right 
and left of the Anapus, on which latter side was the 
marsh Lysimeleia, extending nearly to the walls of 
Syracuse. In the bay of Syracuse, as in all other 
similar situations where rivers terminate in the sea, 
we may expect to find the coast at the mouth of the 
river, and the lower course of the river itself, different 
from their ancient state • and as the alluvium which 
causes such changes has, in the present instance, been 
deposited chiefly or entirely by the Anapus, (the Cyane 
being a pure, deep-seated source, with a course of 
no more than two miles,) it is probable that the course 
of the Anapus, below the junction, is now nearer than 
it was anciently to the hill of Olympieium, and that 
the ground between them is narrower. 

On the following day both armies drew out in order 

G 



50 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE, 



of battle. The Syracusan cavalry was on the right ; 
their left seems to have been extended nearly to the 
heights of Syracuse ; for Thucydides remarks, that some 
of the infantry on the left, who were nearest to the city, 
retired thither. The Athenian hoplitse were, for the 
most part, eight in depth, the Syracusan sixteen. The 
Athenians advanced, were met by the enemy, and 
gained a complete victory, in the midst of rain and 
thunder, though they w T ere prevented from availing 
themselves thoroughly of their advantage by the 
enemy's cavalry, under cover of which their infantry 
rallied on the Helorine way, threw some troops into 
the temple of Jupiter Olympius, lest the Athenians 
should plunder it, and retreated in safety. Their loss 
was 260, that of the Athenians 50. The winter sea- 
son now induced the Athenians to give up their enter- 
prise until they should receive some assistance in 
cavalry from Athens, or from their allies of Sicily : 
they withdrew therefore with the whole armament to 
Catana and Naxus, where they passed the winter, and 
at the former of these cities prepared bricks and iron 
for the circumvallation of Syracuse, is top irepiTecx^ov 

irXivQia real alSrjpov rjroljbLa^ov. (88, 6.) 

The Syracusans meanwhile strengthened their city 
on the side towards Epipolse, with the view of pre- 
venting the Athenians, should they obtain possession 
of that height, from making a circumvallation in the 
narrowest part. They built a wall, therefore, con- 
nected with the city, looking in all its extent towards 
Epipobe, and enclosing within it the sanctuary of 

Apollo Temeilites : erel^ov irpos rrj 7To\€c } rbv TefAevlrrjv 
Ivtos 7roi7]G-d/uL€Vot,, rel'xps irapd irav to irpos tcls ^EiriirdXas 
opcov, oitcos /mi) Bt eXdacrovos evairoTuyicrToi oicriv. (75, 1.) 

They placed also a garrison (fypovpiov) in Megara, and 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



51 



another in the Olympieium, and they palisaded all the 

places adapted to debarkation (rrjv OdXacraav irpoearav- 
ptoaav iravTayfi y aTro^daeis rjaav) , not without the hope 

that they might succeed in preventing the Athenians 
from occupying Epipolse, without which there was 
little danger of Syracuse being taken. And for this 
purpose, in the early part of the summer of b. c. 414, 
they turned their attention to the defence of the passes 
leading up to Epipolae through the cliffs which enclose 
it. Three of these passages were in Neapolis : one 
behind the theatre ; another, now called Fuscu (Sici- 
lian for fosco, 'dark'), is half a mile further to the 
westward ; and there is a third at the western extre- 
mity of Neapolis, where appears to have been a gate 
leading into Epipoke. Two of these were accessible 
to wheel-carriages ; and the principal entrances on the 
other sides of Syracuse were doubtless equally so. 
But, besides these passages through the cliffs, there 
were others which led to 7rv\l8es, or small gates, and 
were intended for foot-passengers. The positions of 
some of these, having steps cut in the rock leading up 
to them, are still to be observed in the enclosure of 
Syracuse, as well on the land side as on that towards 
the sea. 

The name Epipola is applied by Thucydides, as 
already hinted, not only to the western part of the 
triangular table-summit of Syracuse, — where in later 
times stood one of the five component cities of Syra- 
cuse, — but to the whole tabular height bordered by 
cliffs, which lies westward of the hill of Achradina. 
He describes Epipolas as rising in a slope from the 
city, so as to afford a view of its interior, and as sur- 
rounded by precipices which admitted only of an 
access to the height through certain passes in the 



52 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



cliffs : ol XvpcucoGioi) . . . vofiLcravres, edv fir) rwv ' EitlttoXwv 
Kparrjcrcoo'tv ol 'AOrjvcuoi, (%coptov diroKpr\fivov re Kal virep rr)s 
rrdXecds ev6vs Keifievov^) ovk av paBloos o-<f>as, ov£ el Kparolvro 
fiayjfi aTTOTei'^LO'Orjvai , Bievoovvro rds irpoo~(Sdo-ei$ avrcov (f)V- 
Xdaaetv, ottcos fir) Kara ravras XaOwcn crcpa? dvafidvres ol 
rroXefiioi' ov yap av aXXrj ye avrovs BvvrjOrjvat. e%r\prr)rai yap 
ro aXXo ftcoplov, Kal fie^pi rr)s rroXews eiriKXives re ean Kal 
eir Leaves irav ecaco' Kal wvofxacrrai vito rwv XvpaKoalcov, Sid 
ro e7rt7ro\r)9 rod aXXov elvai, 'E7riTroXal. (96, 1, 2.) 

At the moment when the Syracusans had drawn 
out their army in the meadow of the Anapus, for the 
purpose of selecting 600 hoplitse for the defence of 
Epipola?, the Athenians, who had sailed from Catana, 
landed at Leon, six or seven stades from Epipolae in the 
opposite direction, and, before the Syracusans could 
arrive from the meadow of the Anapus, which was 
much more distant, had ascended by Euryalus into 
Epipolse. The distance of Leon from Epipoke iden- 
tifies it with a small harbour below Targia on the road 
from the Aguglia to Targetta. Immediately after the 
landing, the Athenian fleet was sent to Thapsus (now 
Magnisi), a peninsula connected by a narrow isthmus 
with the main : ^epaovrjaos ev arevcp \o~6fi(p rrpovypvea es 
ro ireXayos, rrjs Be XvpaKoatcov TroXecos ovre rrXovv ovre 6Bov 
7roXXr)v direxei. (97, 1.) Here the naval force protected 
itself by a stockade across the isth mus, Biao~ravp(oo~d{ie- 
vos rov lo-dfiov, r)avx a Z ev - (97, 2.) As soon as the 600 
Syracusan hoplitse, with some other troops, arrived on 
Epipolae, they were attacked and defeated by the 
Athenians, who were already in possession of the 
heights : 300 Syracusans were slain, and among them 
Diomilus, leader of the 600. The Syracusans then 
retired into the city, towards which the Athenians the 
next day advanced, offering battle, but without effect. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



53 



They then proceeded to build a fortress at Labdalum, 
on the highest rocks of Epipolse, looking towards 
Megara, to serve for a place in which their materials 
and property might be deposited, whether they should 
be employed in fighting or in circumvallating : $pov- 

piov eiri ra> Aafihakcp <p/co8ofA,r)<Tav, eir aicpois tols /cprj/jLvol? 
twv i Ett lttoKcov opcov 7rp09 ra Me'yapa, ottcos elrj avTocs, OTrdre 
TTpoioLev, rj \xaypv}Jb€voi rj Tei^iovvres, tols re o-fceveai kcu tols 
Xp-npao-iv airo6r\Kri. (97, ad fin.) Hence Labdalum appears 
to have been the name of the narrow ridge defended by 
cliffs, now called Belvedere, which extends a mile to 
the north-west from the pass of Mongibellisi, and ter- 
minates in a peak, at the foot of which is a small 
village, and now (1839) on the summit, a telegraph. 
On some part of this ridge the fortress of the Athenians 
was probably built. It has indeed been supposed by 
some topographers of Syracuse that the height named 
Bufalaro, to the east of Mongibellisi, where are some 
ancient quarries, was the site of that fortress ; and that 
Euryalus was at the peak of Belvedere : but if Euryalus 
was the key of Epipolse from the westward, as Thu- 
cydides plainly shows, it cannot have been any where 
but at Mongibellisi, where is the only pass into the 
table-land of Epipolse at its western end. Labdalum 
was situated on the highest cliffs of Epipola? ; whereas 
Bufalaro is a round height below the summit, midway 
between the southern and the northern cliffs. It is 
almost needless to remark, that Labdalum could not 
have been at Mongibellisi itself, because Labdalum 
looked down upon Thapsus and Megara, whereas the 
ancient castle at Mongibellisi stands on a depression 
which connects the ridge of Belvedere with that of 
Bufalaro, and is concealed by a ridge on its northern 
side from the sites of Leon and Thapsus. If Labdalum 



54 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



had occupied any part of Epipolse, it must have been on 
the edge of the northern cliffs, northward of Bufalaro. 
But I am more inclined to believe that Labdalum, like 
the modern Belvedere, is applicable to the whole of 
the ridge westward of Mongibellisi, and that Euryalus, 
or ' the broad knoll,' was a name descriptive of the 
entire height of Bufalaro, from its termination east- 
ward of the latomiee, to its other end at Mongibellisi, 
— where, in an age subsequent to the Peloponnesian 
war, was erected the castle of Euryalus, of w T hich the 
ruins are still extant. 

Soon afterwards the Athenians received a welcome 
reinforcement of 400 horse from their Sicilian allies, 
and thus increased the amount of their cavalry to 650; 
after which, having left a guard in Labdalum, they 
proceeded to Syce, and began to construct their cir- 
cumvallation as quickly as possible : KaTaarricravTes lv 

T£0 Aa/38a\(p (frvXatcrjv, e^copovv 7rpo$ tt]V ^vktjv ol * AOrjvcuoL, 
tvairep KaOetpfJievoi erel^iaav rov kvkKov Sta Taypvs. (98, 2.) 
An attempt to interrupt them was made by the Syra- 
cusans, but they were defeated in an action in which all 
the Athenian cavalry was engaged, together with a single 
(f>v\rj of hoplitee. The next day the Athenians worked 
at their wall on the northern side, and some were 
employed in collecting stones and wood near Trogilus, 
at which place the line between the harbour and the 
outer sea was shortest : ol pukv erel^ov r&v 'AO^valcov 
to 7rpbs {Sopeav rov kv/cXov rel^pSy ol Se \l6ov? Kai %v\a 
%vjjL(j)opovvT€9 TrapeftaXkov eirl rov TpwyCkov /caXovjuevov, del 
ffirep /3pa^yraTov iylyvero avrols e/c tov jjueyakov Xi/uue'vos 
67rt rrjv irepav Oakacrcrav to dirorel^io-jjia. (99, 1.) We 

find, in fact, that the shortest line from the outer sea 
to the great harbour of Syracuse is from Scala Greca 
to the shore of the harbour below the theatre. Scala 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



55 



Greca, therefore, was the port of the Trogilii men- 
tioned hy Livy; and Trogilus probably was the name 
of the entire suburb adjacent to the northern wall of 
Syracuse, below the modern Targia and Targetta, 
which names may have been corrupted from TpaytXos. 
But this shortest line was interrupted by the outwork 
of the Syracusans at Temenitis. 

From all these circumstances we may conclude that 
Syce — the Athenian position from which it was their 
intention to carry their wall of investment northward 
to Trogilus, and southward to the great harbour — was 
near the southern cliffs of Epipolee, opposite to the 
advanced work of the Syracusans around Temenitis, 
and about midway between the two extremities of the 
intended Athenian circumvallation. Syce was pro- 
bably the name of a small village which in a later age 
was a part of the city Epipolse. That the Athenian 
position at Syce was near the southern cliffs of Epi- 
polas, seems evident from the fact, that the Athenians 
worked at first in two places to the northward of their 
position, namely, near it, and on the other side of 
Epipolas, near Trogilus, where the materials were pre- 
pared, and where the circumvallation was to terminate 
to the north. Some commentators have supposed 
that XvKrj is an erroneous or dialectic reading for Tv^n, 
and that Thucydides intended the Tvxelov, or temple of 
Fortune, which afterwards gave name to one of the 
quarters of upper Syracuse : but we have the clear 
testimony of Livy, that Hexapylum, the great northern 
entrance of Syracuse, led through Tycha to Achradina; 
consequently, that Tycha was adjacent to the northern 
walls. Hvfcrj, the fig-tree, was not uncommon as the 
name of a village, like Sykia at the present day ; and, 
in this instance, it seems to have been that of a small 



56 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



suburban place, like Labdalum, Leon, Trogilus, and 
others. 

The Syracusans now resolved to build a cross-wall 
(iyrcapo-Lov Teiftos or viroTel^o'i^ci) to intercept the Athe- 
nian circumvallation {viroTeL^l^eiv Be a/jueivov e8o/c€L elvai, 
r) eiceivoi e^eXXov a%eiv to ret^os, 99, 2) in its progress 
towards the shore of the great harbour on that side ; 
and which would, if the Athenians should endeavour to 
frustrate the attempt, cause at least an interruption to 
their operations on Epipolse. This Syracusan counter- 
work consisted of a wall and palisade with wooden 
towers at intervals. Stockades were also raised at the 
places which afforded the readiest access from the 
Athenian camp (aravpoh 7rpoKaTa\a/j,/3dvovT69 rovs e<po- 
Sovs) : these places were the irpoo-fido-eis or passes in 
the southern cliffs of Epipolse, which afford a descent 
from Epipobe into Neapolis. For these purposes the 
Syracusans cut down the olive-trees in the temenus 
of Apollo. The Syracusans, observes the historian, 
were at this time masters of the places on the sea- 
side, (eKparovv rcov irepl rrjv Oakaaaav, 99, 4,) the Athe- 
nians, whose ships had not yet sailed from Thapsus, 
obtaining their supplies from thence by land ; a remark 
which accounts for the Syracusan cross -wall having 
been erected between Epipolse and the harbour ; for in 
the sequel this clearly appears to have been its posi- 
tion. Had the Athenian fleet been in possession of 
the harbour, a cross- wall, exposed as it would have 
been to the enemy on both sides, would have been too 
hazardous an undertaking ; and accordingly we find 
that when the Athenians had occupied the harbour 
with their fleet, they were no longer opposed in pro- 
longing their wall from Syce to the harbour. 

The counterwork of the Syracusans appears to have 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



57 



commenced from the western wall of Achradina, be- 
tween the Agragian gate and that point of the western 
wall where it was joined by the enclosure or outwork 
of Temenitis, and to have been carried along the lower 
platform afterwards occupied by Neapolis, having the 
cliffs of Epipolae on the right, and the plain with the 
marsh Lysimeleia on the left. In the wall of Temenitis 
there was a irvXis, or small gate, protected as usual by 
a stockade in front. 

When the Syracusans had carried on their work to 
a considerable extent, and found that the enemy made 
no attempt to interrupt them, they withdrew into the 
city, leaving a single <j>v\7} in guard of their counter- 
work. The Athenians now cut of! the conduits of 
water, (we have seen that the principal aqueduct of 
Syracuse passed exactly through the position which I 
have assigned to Syce,) then — watching the moment 
when the Syracusans in charge of the counterwork 
had retired into their tents at mid-day, and some into 
the city, and when the guard left at the palisaded wall 

was negligent (tovs ev too aTavpw/xari dfieX&s (f>vkda<JOVTas 3 

100, 1.) — they sent 300 chosen Athenian hoplitse 
(<t$(ov avrcov Xoydhas), at a rapid pace, suddenly 
against it (irpbs to vTroTel'xiafia) , while the rest of their 
forces (jj aX\,7) GTpaTid) y divided into two bodies, pro- 
ceeded, the one to the city, that is to say, towards the 
gate of Agragas, to meet any force that might ad- 
vance from thence, and the other to a palisaded work 

before a Small gate (irpos to aTavpcojuia to nrapd tt]v TrvXlSa) 

which led into the outwork of Temenitis. The 300 
took the stockade of the counterwork : those left in 
charge of it fled into Temenitis (& to irpoTeiyiGiia to 
irepl tov T€jjl€vIt7]v, 100, 2), and were pursued by the 
enemy into that outwork, but who then met with op- 

H 



58 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



position from the Syracusans, when some Argives and 
a few Athenians fell in the encounter. The Argives 
were evidently of those who had been sent against the 
stockade of the small gate, and who, it thus appears, 
had forced their way in ; for the 300 consisted of 
Athenians alone. And hence it appears also, that the 
7rv\h, although not so described, was a gate of the 
outwork Temenitis, and that the division of the army 
sent against it had easily taken the stockade in front 
of it. The entire force then took possession of the 
Syracusan counterwork {viroTeiyio-iv KaOeiXov), destroyed 
the palisade, carried away with them the stakes (arav- 
povs), and erected a trophy. (100, ad fin.) 

The next day, the Athenians — whose circumvalla- 
tion had hitherto been carried on to the northward of 
Syce, but who were encouraged by the former day's 
success to continue it to the harbour, — prepared for 
this work by building a wall along the crest of the 
cliffs until they reached a point where the distance 
would be the shortest possible to that part of the shore 
of the harbour which was to be the southern end of 
their circumvallation, and which was separated from 
the cliffs by the lower level afterwards occupied by 
Neapolis, and by the plain and marsh : rrj £ va-repala 

cltto rov kvkXov iTefytfyv oi ^ AQrivaioi top KpTj/xvov tov virep tov 
eXovs, os twv ^EitlttoXcov TavTy 7rpos tov /JLeyav Xi/xiva opa, 
kclI j)7rep avTOts /Spa^vraTOV iylyveTO fcaTaficicri, Slcl tov ofiaXov 
kcll tov eXovs is tov Xtfjueva to 7repiTel%Lcr/jLa. (101, 1.) 

Here the words eTe/^tfoz^ tov icp^vov may require a 
little consideration. It could not have been the pur- 
pose of the Athenians to strengthen the cliffs, which 
were not only strong enough in themselves, but were 
on that side of the Athenian camp which was the 
most free from danger ; for the Syracusans were never 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



59 



sufficiently strong to make a serious attack upon the 
Athenian camp, even when they possessed a chain of 
posts extending to the enemy's rear. The wall along 
the cliffs, therefore, was defensive against the enemy 
in Temenitis, and was for the purpose of covering the 
communication along the cliffs between the camp at 
Syce and the advanced point of the cliffs from which 
commenced the double wall of circumvallation across 
the site of Neapolis and across the plain lying between 
Neapolis and the Anapus. 

The Syracusans immediately commenced a second 
counterwork, to the southward of the former, and 
which was intended to intercept the Athenian walls in 
the plain. It commenced from the city, and consisted 
chiefly of a trench and palisade across the marsh Lysi- 

meleia (/col ol XvpcacoaioL ev tovtco, e%ek66vT€5, Kai avrol 
anre<jTavpovv avOis, ap^dfjuevoi airo rrjs TroXetos, Sea /neaov rov 
e\ovs' kcu TCL<j)pov afia 7rapcopvacrov, ottcos {jlt) oidv re fj tols 
' AOrjvciLOis /^eXP c 0ci\dcra7]9 anroTeiylaai, 101, 2), which, 

though it may formerly have been larger than it is 
now, is still of considerable dimensions in the brumal 
half-year, and communicates with the sea about mid- 
way between the angle of the great port, where I have 
supposed the wall of Achradina to have terminated, 
and the mouth of the Anapus. As the Athenian walls 
were directed to some point in this interval, the pali- 
saded intrenchment of the Syracusans, had it been 
completed, would have intersected it nearly at right 
angles in the middle of the plain, and would have had 
a length of about 1200 yards. 

As soon as the Athenians had completed their wall 
along the cliff, it was necessary to attempt the de- 
struction of the enemy's new intrenchment, at the 
same time that the ships at Thapsus were ordered to 



60 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



enter the great harbour of Syracuse. Descending 
therefore early in the morning from Epipolee into the 
plain, they crossed a part of the marsh by throwing 
wooden doors and planks over the most difficult 
places, and at day-break carried all the enemy's pali- 
sade and dyke, except a small part which was taken 
afterwards. A battle ensued, the Athenians were vic- 
torious, the right of the Syracusans fled to the city, 
and the left towards the river, with the view of re- 
treating to the Olympieium, of which the Syracusans 
had retained possession. A body of 300 select Athe- 
nians endeavoured to cut them off from the bridge of 
the Anapus, but were turned by the Syracusan ca- 
valry, and driven upon their own right wing, when 
Lamachus, the Athenian general, advancing from the 
left to their defence, was slain, with a few others, in 
passing a ditch, and his body was carried across the 
river by the Syracusans. This occurrence encouraged 
those who had fled into the town to advance again ; 
and part of them attacked the Athenian works on 
Epipolse, where Nicias had been detained by sickness. 
They succeeded in taking, and destroyed, an outwork 
1000 feet long (to heKaifkeOpov TrpoTefyicr/jLa, 102, 2), 
which had been raised to afford a necessary protection 
from surprise to those who were at work on the wall 
itself; but they were prevented from making any at- 
tempt upon the latter (avrov rbv kvkKov) wall by Nicias, 
who ordered the machines and wood collected before 
the wall, for the further progress of the work, to be 
set on fire, so that the enemy was unable to advance 
through the flames. They retired, therefore, and the 
more hastily, as the Athenians had now received assist- 
ance from the plain below, and the fleet from Thapsus 
was seen to enter the great harbour. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



61 



The Athenians, having now their fleet and army 
collected in one place, confidently undertook the com- 
pletion of a double wall from the cliffs of Epipolae to 

the Sea (diro rcov ^EttcttoXcov teal rod Kpr/fivdihovs dp^d/juevoi, 
direTuyiCpv ^XP L T ^l s ^^daarjs Telnet 8i7r\a> tovs ^vpaico- 

o~lovs, 103, 1.) They were now joined by many of the 
Siculi, and by three penteconters from Tyrrhenia ; 
they received supplies also from the adjacent parts of 
Italy ; while the Syracusans, despairing of being able 
to prevent the circumvallation, began to confer among 
themselves, as well as with the enemy, concerning 
terms of surrender. These conferences, however, had 
no result, and the only step taken by the Syracusans 
was to dismiss Hermocrates, and to appoint three new 
generals in his place. 

Meantime Gylippus the Lacedaemonian had sailed 
with four ships to their relief, leaving at Leucas the rest 
of the Corinthian fleet ; and although some accounts 
which he had received led him at first to believe that 
he should be too late,- — which made him turn his at- 
tention to the security of the Greek cities on the coast 
of Italy, on his route, — further advices which reached 
him during his progress determined him, after having 
landed at Himera, to proceed from thence across the 
island to Syracuse, with 700 armed sailors and ma- 
rines (eirc/Sdrao) , 1000 Siculi, 1100 Himersei (of whom 
100 were cavalry), and a small force from Selinus and 
Gela. Encouraged by the arrival of a Corinthian 
ship, which announced the speedy advent of others, as 
well as by the intelligence of the approach of Gylippus 
by land, the Syracusans advanced with their whole 
force towards the Athenian position on Epipolse ; while 
Gylippus entered Epipolse without opposition through 
the same pass of Euryalus by which the Athenians had 



62 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



ascended from Leon, and joined the Syracusans near 
the Athenian line of circumvallation. The Athenians 
were at this time employed in the construction of their 
double wall towards the great harbour, which was seven 
or eight stades in length, and of which no more than a 
small portion on the shore remained to be executed : 
^vvra^dfjbevos cos es fid^rjv, dcpiKvelraL is rds 'ETMrokds' zeal 
dvajBds Kara tov EvpvrjXov, fjirep kcll ol 'AOrjvaiot, to irptoTov, 
escapee fjuerd tcov Xvpaicocrlodv eiri to Tefyio-jjua tcov *A6r]valcov. 
eTvye Be kclto, tovto tov icaipov e\6cov ev a> eVra puev r} oktco 
crTaBlcov %$r) eTreT€TeXeo~TO T0I9 > A0rjvaloL9 e? tov pbiyav Xl/ubeva 
hiirXovv Tei^os, ifXrjv kclto, ftpayy tl to irpos ttjv daXaaaav. 

(Thucyd. 7, 2, § 3, 4.) 

As the nearest point of the cliffs to the angle of the 
great harbour, near the site of the Agragian gate, is not 
less than eight stades, it seems evident that the c seven 
or eight stades ' are to be confined to that part of the 
Athenian lines which were in the maritime plain, and 
that the portion which began at the cliffs, and crossed 
the site of Neapolis, having been completed, was not 
taken into account in this computation of Thucydides. 
Indeed, it is likely that this part of the work was 
already in progress when the Syracusans began their 
second counterwork or intrenchment across the marsh. 

Towards Trogilus and the other sea, stones were laid 
ready most part of the way; some part of the wall 
was half-finished, and some part completed : to such 
an extreme of danger, adds the historian, had Syra- 
cuse arrived. He seems to have thought, that had 
the circumvallation been completed, the capture of 
the city would have been certain. It was to prevent 
the possibility of such a circumvallation, that Diony- 
sius I., twelve years afterwards, built a wall along the 
northern cliffs. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



G3 



The fatal error of Nicias in neglecting to fortify 
Euryalus, the key of Epipolee, — the importance of 
which, in the opinion of the ancients, is shown by the 
still extant fortress built in later times to protect this 
entrance into Syracuse,- — is one of those unaccountable 
infatuations which often occur in military history. 
Instead of so doing, he had placed a garrison at Lab- 
dalum, apparently because that position commands a 
view towards Leon and Megara, on which side were, at 
that time, all his naval forces. As an exterior security 
to Euryalus, a post at Labdalum might have been 
useful, but it was of no value whatever when that 
point was left open. 

As soon as Gylippus had effected a junction with 
the Syracusans, he offered to treat with the Athenians 
for their undisturbed evacuation of Sicily in rive days : 
no answer was given. The forces on both sides were 
drawn out for battle, but no action ensued : Gylippus, 
seeing the Syracusans in disorder, withdrew to a more 
open place (Is tt)v evpv^coplav fjLaXkov, 3, 3), and when he 
perceived that Nicias remained behind his wall, {rjav- 
Xa£e irpos ra> eavrov Te/%et,) led his army to the hill 
Temenitis, and there encamped {eiri rrjv aicpav tt\v Te^e- 

jjA/Ttv koXov fievrjv /ecu avrov 7jv\lcravTo) . The first position 

of Gylippus appears to have been between the Athe- 
nian wall and that of Temenitis ; from thence he 
moved into the space afterwards occupied by the third 
Syracusan counterwork, and by the enclosure adjacent 
to it, and from thence into Temenitis. The next day, 
Gylippus made a demonstration towards the Athenian 
works, while he sent a division against Labdalum, 
which place was not seen from the Athenian position. 
By these means he succeeded in taking Labdalum, and 
put the garrison to death. The fact of Labdalum 



64 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



having been invisible from the Athenian position, 
shows that it could not have been on the height of 
Bufalaro. On the same day an Athenian ship was 
taken by the Syracusans, while entering the harbour. 

The Syracusans and their allies now began to build 
a wall upwards from the city in a transverse direction 
to that of the Athenians, for the purpose of prevent- 
ing them from continuing their circumvallation in a 
northerly direction (erelx^ov Bed tcov 'EttittoXcqv, diro rrjs 
iro\6(09 ap%dfjL€voi avco 7rpos to eytcdpcriov, 1 rel^os aifkovv' 
07TC09 61 'AOijvaioc, el fir) hvvaivTo fccoXvaai, /jajfcero olol re 
wo-tv diroreixtcraL. 4, 1). We have seen that the Athe- 
nian circumvallation was a double wall ; that the first 
Syracusan counterwork was a wall with a palisade be- 
fore it, having wooden towers at intervals ; and that 
their second counterwork in the marsh consisted of a 
trench and palisade. In this third counterwork a single 
wall (reoxos difkovv) without a palisade seems to have 
been considered sufficient, because it was covered on the 
left by the outwork of Temenitis, and had a powerful 
force to protect the workmen engaged in raising it. 

The Athenians, having now finished their wall end- 
ing at the harbour, had collected their forces on the 
heights (dvaftefiriiceo-av rjSrj avco. 4, 2). In the night, 
Gylippus advanced towards a weak place in the Athe- 
nian wall ; but finding that his opponents were on the 
outside of the wall, and that they advanced against 
him, he withdrew : after which the Athenians raised 
that part of their wall higher, and kept that station to 
themselves, while their allies were stationed in other 
parts of the walls. 

1 7rpbs opdiov — 7rpds avavres • — Trpbs to aip.bv, are employed, in the 
same manner by Xenophon, Hell. 5, 4, § 54 ; 4, 3, § 16. A comma, 
therefore, is required between iyKapa-iov and rei^oy. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



65 



Nicias, finding his hopes of a successful event by 
land much impaired, now turned his attention to his 
naval resources, and resolved to fortify Plemmyrium. 
This promontory was opposite to the city, and nar- 
rowed the entrance of the harbour, so that, when 
fortified, the importation of necessaries would be 
easier, the station of the Athenian ships would be 
nearer to the Syracusan port, (i. e. the smaller or 
northern harbour,) and the Athenians would not be 
obliged to advance from the inner part of the bay in 
case of any movement on the part of the enemy : ofy, 
&GTrep vvv, 6/c /jlv%ov rov \cpJvos ras eTravaycoyas 7rotrio-eaSat 3 
7]v tl vavTucw fcwcbvToi. (4, 4.) Proceeding, therefore, 
with some land forces and the ships, he built three 
forts, {htaKOfilaas ovv arpaTiav /cal tcls vavs, e^ere^tae rpla 
<j>povpia,) in which he placed the greater part of the 
naval stores ; the ships of burden, as well as the war- 
ships, had already anchored there : ra o-tcevr) to, ifXelara 
e/eetro, /ecu tcl ifKola rjSr) eicei ra fxeyaXa wp/j,ei, kcll at ra^elai 
vrjes. (4, 5.) But the ships' companies (ra irX^pcofiara) 

soon experienced the inconveniences of this position. 
Water was scarce or far to fetch, and the Syracusans 
had augmented their cavalry at Polichne and the 
temple of Jupiter Olympius, so that it now amounted 
to one-third of their whole strength in that arm ; and 
the Athenian seamen were sometimes cut off by them 
when employed in collecting fuel : iirl fypvyaviaiwv 
07roVe egeXOoiev ol vavrai. (4, 6.) 

Nicias sent, likewise, twenty ships towards Rhegium 
and Locri, to look out for the Corinthian ships coming 
to the assistance of the enemy. Meantime Gylippus 
continued the cross-wall through Epipolas (to ha rwv 
'EitiitoXwv relxos), making use of the stones which the 
Athenians had provided for their own circumvallation, 

i 



66 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



and which, as Thucydides had before informed us, 
were chiefly collected near Trogilus. While engaged 
in this work, Gylippus drew out the Syracusans and 
their allies in front of the workmen, (7rpo tov Te^o-fiaTos, 
5, 1,) which obliged the Athenians to form a line op- 
posite to them. At length he attacked the enemy, — 
but, as the action occurred between the walls of the 
respective parties, (/nera^v tcov TeiftmpaTcov, 5, 2,) the 
Syracusan cavalry was of no avail. From these cir- 
cumstances we may deduce with some degree of pro- 
bability the position of the lyndpGiov re^os dirXovv, or 
transverse single wall of the Syracusans, as well as the 
extent to which the Athenians had carried their cir- 
cumvallation to the northward. We may infer also 
that the distance was not very great between the 
Athenian lines and the nearly parallel Syracusan out- 
work of Temenitis. 

Gylippus took the blame of this failure upon him- 
self, and in a second action was more successful. On 
this occasion Nicias, who saw the necessity of making 
an effort to prevent the enemy's wall from crossing his 
line, which it had almost done, (^Brj ydp /cat oaov ov 

TrapeXrjkvOeL rrjv twv 'AOrjvalcov tov ret^pvs Tekevrrjv rj 

€kuv<ov Te/%«m, 6, 1,) commenced the attack. Gylip- 
pus drew out the hoplitas further beyond the walls 

than before, (efw tcov Tei^v paXkov rj irpoTepov, 6, 2,) 

and thus obliged the Athenians, in meeting them, to 
expose their left flank to his cavalry in the plain be- 
yond the termination of the walls of either party (Kara 

tt)v €vpv%a)plap rj twv tbl^wv dp,(p>OTepcov al ipyaalai, eXrjyov). 

The Athenians were defeated, and retired in confusion 
within their walls ; and in the following night the 
Syracusan counterwork was carried out so far beyond 
the construction of the Athenians, that it was no 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



67 



longer possible for the latter to complete their circum- 
vallation. Soon afterwards, twelve ships from Corinth, 
Ambracia, and Leucas, arrived at Syracuse without 
having encountered the Athenian ships sent to meet 
them. The Syracusan cross-wall was now united with 
the enclosure of Temenitis, {^uv&td%i^m> to \ol7tov toIs 
SvpaKoalois ^XP L T °v feyKaptrmv rel^ovs, 7, 1,) and thus 
largely extended the dimensions of that outwork of 
Achradina. 

Nicias, in a dispatch which he now sent to Athens, 
informed the Athenians that he could not continue to 
circum vallate the enemy, (irepureiylo-ai avrovs, 11,3,) 
unless their outwork {irapaTelyio-pa) were taken, which 
would require a large force ; and that, being unable to 
face their cavalry, he had become rather the besieged 
than the besieger. He complained of the increase of 
the enemy's allies, of the bad repair of his own ships, 
of the loss or desertion of his seamen, and requested 
permission to resign his command. This was refused, 
but it w r as voted that reinforcements should be sent in 
the spring, to be commanded by Demosthenes and 
Eurymedon : the latter, meantime, was dispatched, 
about the winter solstice, with ten ships, and twenty 
(or 120) talents. 

The Corinthians, having resolved, at the same time, 
upon sending further assistance to Syracuse, fitted out 
twenty-five ships, with vessels of burden (oXfcd&es) for 
the transport of hoplitse. In the early spring Gylippus 
in person collected reinforcements from his Sicilian 
allies, and on his return with them to Syracuse, urged 
the Syracusans to oppose the enemy at sea, in which 
counsel he was seconded by Hermocrates. Accord- 
ingly, forty-five Syracusan ships from the small port, 
in which was the naval arsenal, {Ik tov ekdaaovos ou rjv koI 



68 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



to vewpiov clvtoIs, 22, 1 ,) endeavoured to effect a junc- 
tion with twenty-five others in the great harbour, with 
the view of assisting Gylippus in a projected attack by 
land upon Plemmyrium. Against the former of these 
squadrons the Athenians sent twenty-five ships, while 
thirty-five others met the squadron from the small port 
at the entrance of the great harbour. Here the Syra- 
cusans were at first successful ; but those who had 
forced the entrance of the harbour falling into disorder, 
the Athenians ultimately prevailed, destroyed eleven 
Syracusan ships, slew the greater part of the men on 
board of eight of them, and captured those of the three 
remaining. They erected a trophy on the small island 

off* Plemmyrium, (iv ra vijaiSlq) tu> irpo rod IIXrjfifjLVplou, 

23, 4,) now called Castelluccio, and, towing away the 
wrecks of their prizes, returned to their station at the 
head of the great harbour. 

Meantime Gylippus, marching by night, had at- 
tacked Plemmyrium, and, while the garrison was intent 
on the proceedings by sea, had carried the three for- 
tresses ; in honour of which event the Syracusans 
erected three trophies. The loss of Plemmyrium, ob- 
serves the historian, was the chief cause of the ruin of 
the Athenian armament. Three of their triremes were 
here stranded, (dvetX/cva/juevai, 24 , 2,) and taken posses- 
sion of by the enemy ; besides which they lost the sails 
of forty triremes, a provision of corn, and many stores 
belonging to trierarchs and sutlers. Nor was it long 
before they had to lament a similar loss sustained by 
them on the coast of Italy, where a squadron of Syra- 
cusan ships of war encountered and destroyed some 
vessels laden with supplies for them, burnt some of 
their ship-timber, (tjvXa vamn^riaLfia, 25, 2,) which had 
been collected for them in the Cauloniatis, and re- 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



69 



turned to Syracuse with no other loss than that of one 
ship taken by the Athenian squadron of twenty ships, 
which was stationed at Megara. 

In the (great) harbour the Syracusans made a 
stockade in the sea, before the old ship-houses, (ev tw 
\ifjbivt, irpo rcov TraXaccov vewcroltccov, 25, 5,) as a protection 
to them against the enemy. Although the historian 
employs only the w T ords lv rat \l/jL6vc, he could not have 
meant the smaller harbour, into which the Athenians 
never entered, and of which doubtless the interior 
part, containing, as we know, the vewpia, or naval 
arsenal, was a closed port (k\€i<ttos At/^). It is pro- 
bable that the old ship-houses were within the walls of 
Achradina, not far from the isthmus of Ortygia. 

The Athenians, having brought near the stockade a 
ship of 10,000 talents' burden, fortified with wooden 
towers and bulwarks, drew out the stakes by wind- 
lasses placed in barges, or cut them with saws by 

means of divers : irpoaayayovres vavv fjuvpiocpdpov, irvpyovs 
re %v\lvovs expvaav kcll irapa^pdyixara, etc re rcov d/cdrcov 
covevov dvaSovfievoi rovs aravpovs teal oLvetckcov, kcll Kara/co- 

\vfi/3covT€s e%eirpiov (25, 6.) Meantime there was an 
active interchange of missiles between the two con- 
tending parties ; but the Athenians succeeded in de- 
stroying the greater part of the stockade. 

About this time the Syracusans received some aug- 
mentation to their land forces from their Greek allies 
of Sicily (Si/ceXicorat) ; and being informed of the ex- 
pected arrival of an armament from Athens under 
Demosthenes and Eurymedon, determined to make an 
attempt upon the enemy by sea and land before the 
arrival of these reinforcements. They prepared for 
the naval attack by shortening, lowering, and strength- 
ening the prows of their ships, in imitation of the 



70 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



Corinthians ; which alteration, as the Athenian prows 
were high and narrow, would give them an advantage 
when striking with the prow {dvTLTrpwpot), as well as 
the means of preventing the Athenians from breaking 
their line (the Siemtkovs) ; while another favourite 
manoeuvre of the Athenians, that of moving round the 
enemy with the view of laying their ships alongside 
their opponents, and boarding them (the Trepiifkovs) , 
would be frustrated by the want of space, now that 
the Athenians were confined to a small part of the 
harbour. 1 

While Gylippus advanced from the city against the 
Athenian lines, the hoplitse stationed at the Olym- 
pieium with the cavalry and light troops of Syracuse 
threatened the opposite side of the enemy's wall {Ik tov 
eirl Odrepa Trpoayei tg> Telnet,, 37, 2). The attack, it 
seems, was made near the two extremities of the Athe- 
nian position, but upon opposite sides of the circum- 
vallation : eighty Syracusan ships then advanced against 
the Athenian ships, to the great surprise of the Athe- 
nians, who were not in expectation of a naval attack. 
But speedily manning seventy-five ships, they advanced 
against the enemy, when an engagement ensued, which 
lasted a great part of the day, but terminated with 
little loss on either side, except that one or two Athe- 
nian ships were sunk by the enemy. 

1 Thucyd. 7, 36, 3. Diodorus (13, 10) says that by means of the 
low prows of the Syracusan ships, they were often enabled to sink 
the Athenians by a single blow. This appears to have been the com- 
mencement of that great change in the construction of the ancient 
galleys of war, by which the most projecting part of the metallic 
prow was placed below the water. See some remarks on this subject 
in reference to a brazen prow found on the site of the battle of Actium, 
in the first volume (second series) of the Transactions of the Royal 
Society of Literature, p. 249,_seq. - 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



71 



During the following day, the Syracusans reposed ; 
while Nicias, in expectation of a renewal of the attack, 
moored some vessels of burden in front of the stockade 
which he had erected in the sea before his triremes, to 
answer the purpose of a closed harbour : oWSas irpo- 

cdpfuae irpo rov afarepov GravpcD/maro?, o avrois irpo twv vecov 
avri \ifjL6V09 kXtjcttov ev ry OaXaao-rj €TT€7rr\<yeL (38, 2.) An 

opening of 200 feet (Bvo ir\e0pa, 38, 3) between the 
vessels of burden afforded egress to his ships, as well 
as a retreat in case of pressure from the enemy. The 
next day the attempt of the Syracusans was renewed by 
land and by sea ; when, partly by renewing the attack 
at an unexpected moment, and partly through the 
annoyance given by light vessels which moved round 
the Athenian ships, as w T ell as in consequence of the 
improvements which had been made in the Syracusan 
ships, the Athenians were obliged to retreat, with the 
loss of seven ships sunk, and a great number of men 
killed or taken : but the enemy was prevented from 
entering the stockade by the dolphins, or weights at- 
tached for that purpose to the yards of the ships of 
burden : eirevra, avrovs at rcepcuai virep rwv eairXcov al diro 
twv oX/cdBcov 8e\<j)ivo(pdpoi rjpfjbivab ifC(o\vov. (41, 2.) By 

the effect of these, one of the Syracusan ships was 
destroyed, and another was taken, together with the 
men belonging to it. The result of this encounter 
inspired the Syracusans with great hopes of becoming 
superior by sea as well as on shore ; and they were 
preparing for further offensive operations, when the 
arrival of Demosthenes and Eurymedon with the re- 
inforcement from Athens, which consisted of 73 ships 
and 5000 hoplitse, with a large force of light-armed, 
made an entire change in their feelings, — as they little 
expected that when the Lacedsemonians had established 



72 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



themselves at Deceleia, within sight of Athens, the 
Athenians would have been capable of sending forth 
such an armament. 

Demosthenes, desirous of profiting by this effect of 
his arrival, and of avoiding such ill consequences as 
had arisen from the dilatory conduct of Nicias, re- 
solved either to take Syracuse, or to withdraw the 
entire armament. Perceiving that the counterwork of 
the Syracusans on Epipolese, which interrupted the 
Athenian circumvallation, consisted of a single wall, 
he resolved upon making an attempt to carry it, and 
then to attack the camp of Gylippus : opcov to nraparel- 

%io-\ia twv Svpa/coalcov, o> €Ka>\vaap irepvreiyicrai afyas rovs 
'Adiyvalovs, difkovv re ov, — /ecu, el liriKpwTr^eii tls twv re 

^EiTTLTToXwV TTjS dvaj3do~€CQ9 KCLL CLv6l9 TOV €V CLVTCUS (TTpdTOlTeSoV, 

pahlcos av, &C. (42, 4.) We have seen that irapaTeix^fia 
was the word employed by Nicias, in his dispatch to 
Athens, in describing the ejfcdpo-iov *ei%os of the Syra- 
cusans. Gylippus now added to his intrenched or 
walled camp of Temenitis three similarly protected 
positions or outworks {irpoTeiylviuvra) on the ascent of 
Epipolee, and a Te/^cr^a (43, 3), or redoubt, at Eury- 
alus, — all manned by the Syracusans or their allies. 
And thus it appears that the Syracusans had now a 
system of outworks covering Achradina and Temenitis, 
and occupying the whole northern side of Epipolae. 
But even thus outflanked, and threatened in the rear, 
the Athenians were still able, by their numerical 
strength, to maintain their position on the southern 
cliffs of Epipolae, in face of Temenitis, from whence 
they extended nearly to the Anapus, and thus block- 
aded every part of Achradina, except its outlets to- 
wards the north. 

Demosthenes began his operations by laying waste 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



73 



the enemy's lands near the Anapus : the only resist- 
ance he met with was from the cavalry and light 
troops at Olympieium. He next made a direct attack 
upon the cross- wall (TrapareLx^^, 43, 1) by machinery, 
but was not successful : his machines were burnt by 
the enemy who defended the walls, and his troops 
were repulsed by their other forces. He then con- 
certed with Nicias and the other generals an attack 
upon the enemy's extreme right at Euryalus; having 
carried which, his intention appears to have been to take 
the eyKapaiov in reverse, which wall we may suppose to 
have now extended beyond the line of the Athenian 
circumvallation, nearly at a right angle to it, in the 
direction of Euryalus. He then intended to attack the 
camp of Gylippus, or hoped at least to complete the 
Athenian circumvallation. It was resolved that Nicias 
should remain in charge of the camp, while Demo- 
sthenes, Eurymedon, and Menander, taking with them 
five days' provision, as well as masons and all things 
necessary for the erection of a wall, should endeavour 
to surprise the enemy's fortified post (retxwfia) at 
Euryalus. In this they succeeded, having ascended by 
the same pass through which the Athenians had gained 
Epipolee on their first arrival (/cara top Evpvrjkov, ywep kol 

rj irpOTepa arpaTLa to irpwrov dvefirj, 43, 3). A part of the 

garrison was slain, the remainder retired, and gave the 
alarm to those who occupied the three other outworks 
(wpoT€l%to-fia,Ta) , as well as to 600 Syracusans who were 
in charge of that part of Epipobe, and who advanced 
to the support of the others, but, after a brave resist- 
tance, were turned by the Athenians. 

The latter now advanced to the Syracusan cross-wall 
(Traparelxto-fMa) , and began to pull down the battlements 
(jds eira\£us dtrecrvpov, 43, 5), when the Syracusans 

K 



74 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



and their allies issued from their works {m 7w 
TrpoTeLxwpaTtov), headed by Gylippus. 1 These at first 
were unable to resist the enemy ; but the latter having, 
in the confidence of victory, advanced in disorder, 
were attacked and defeated by the Boeotians at a mo- 
ment when, although the greater part of the Athe- 
nians had attained the heights, some were still on 
the ascent. The confusion soon became complete. 
If (adds the historian) there is a difficulty in de- 
scribing a battle by day, how shall the occurrences 
of a wKToyba^ia (44, 2) be detailed? Though the 
moon shone brightly, there was not always suffi- 
cient light to distinguish a friend from a foe. The 
watchword of the Athenians, by its frequent repetition 
aloud, became known to the enemy, and no longer 
gave confidence to the Athenians. The singing of the 
paean, too, by the Doric allies of the Athenians, as well 
as by the enemy, was another misfortune, as it left 
them quite uncertain as to the numbers of the enemy 
around them. Driven back upon the cliffs of Epipolse, 
through which there are only a few narrow passages, 

{a-Tevrjs ovcny? rrjs airo tgov 'EttlttoXcov iraXiVKciTaft ctcreco s , 

44, 8,) many perished in throwing themselves over the 
cliffs ; and of those who reached the plain in safety, 
many of the men recently arrived were unable, from 
their ignorance of the place, to find their way back 
to the camp ; but, wandering in the night, were cut 
down in the morning by the cavalry of the Syra- 
cusans. 

The next day the Syracusans erected two trophies : 
one at the entrance of Epipolse, the other where the 

1 We have seen that Thucydides described the enclosure of Teno- 
nitis itself as a Trporei^io-fia. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



75 



Boeotians first opposed the enemy (eV re rah ^EwmdKats 

tj rj irpoajSaaLS, zeal Kara to ^coplov y ol BolcotoI irpooTov 

dvTeo-TTjaav, 45, 1). This entrance of Epipolse was 
doubtless no other than the pass of Euryalus, by which 
the Athenians had ascended. A truce was then agreed 
upon, for the purpose of delivering to the Athenians 
their slain. 

This failure left no hope of accomplishing the object 
of the expedition. Demosthenes, therefore, now urged 
in council his other alternative, — an immediate return 
to Athens ; and the more so, as his active opponent 
had instantly departed for the purpose of collecting 
land forces from the other parts of Sicily. A great 
part of the Athenian camp was moreover in a marshy 
place ; the unhealthy season had commenced, and the 
men were dispirited. But Nicias would not consent 
to depart without instructions from Athens. Demo- 
sthenes and Eurymedon then urged a removal to 
Thapsus or Catana, from whence the land forces might 
subsist themselves upon the lands of the enemy, and 
where the ships would have space for their movements. 
But Nicias still entertained hopes, founded partly upon 
the distressed state of the Syracusan treasury, but 
chiefly upon a party within the walls of Syracuse, with 
whom he entertained a correspondence. No measures 
of departure therefore had been taken, when Gylippus 
returning to Syracuse with numerous auxiliaries, about 
the same time that a reinforcement of hoplitas arrived 
from the Peloponnesus by the circuitous route of 
Libya and Selinus, the Syracusans prepared for a 
general attack upon the enemy by sea and land. 
Meantime sickness increased in the Athenian camp, 
and Nicias consented that orders should be issued for 
a departure at the shortest notice; when an occurrence 



7G 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



intervened which sealed the fate of this unfortunate 
armament. 

A total eclipse of the moon, on the 27th of August, 
413 b. c. s was considered by most of the Athenians as 
an omen (evOvfiiov, 50, 4) which warned the commanders 
to desist from departure ; and Nicias, who was some- 
what superstitious, leaning to this opinion, the sacred 
interpreters pronounced that it required a delay of 
thrice nine days. The Syracusans were rejoiced to 
hear of this, and, with the view T of preventing the 
enemy from establishing himself in any other part of 
Sicily, determined to attack his ships. As a previous 
measure, they exercised their troops for some days, 
and then made a demonstration on the Athenian w T alls, 
where, the approach being narrow 7 , the Athenians 
suffered a loss of seventy horses and some hoplitse in 
retiring into the gates of their intrenched camp, from 
which they had issued (51). 

On the following day the Syracusans advanced with 
seventy-six ships, while their infantry proceeded 
against the Athenian walls. A general action ensued 
by sea, the Athenians engaging with eighty-six ships. 
The Syracusans defeated their opponents in the centre, 
which gave them the means of cutting off and destroy- 
ing, in the bay of Dascon, the Athenian right, under 
Eurymedon, who, in his endeavours to outflank his 
adversary, had approached very near the land in that 
part of the great harbour, lv t&> kol\g) tcai fivx c p tov 
Xt/xevos. 1 (52, 2.) Eurymedon himself was slain. 2 
Gylippus now,— with a view to occupy the shore, and 
to destroy the defeated Athenian sailors who should 

1 Trpbs tov koKtvov tov AacrKcova KaXov/xevov. Diodor. 13, 13. 

2 According to Diodorus, seven Athenian vessels were sunk on 
this occasion, and Eurymedon was slain after having landed. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



77 



land upon it from their ships, as well as to assist 
the Syracusan ships in dragging away the enemy's 
defeated vessels, which had not been able to enter the 
stockaded refuge at the Athenian camp, but had drifted 
(tcaTcifapofievas, 53, 1) along the shore, — advanced 
with a portion of the army along the mole (xn^y) 
which separated the marsh Lysimeleia from the sea. 
He was opposed by the Tyrseni, 1 who drove some of 
the leading files into the marsh ; after which, reinforce- 
ments arrived on both sides, when the Athenians pre- 
vailed, killing a few of the enemy's hoplitae. By this 
fortunate occurrence the greater part of the Athenian 
ships were saved, and brought within the stockade : 
but eighteen were taken on this day by the enemy, 
who put all the men on board to death. An attempt 
was then made to bum the Athenian ships, by sending 
against them an old ship of burden (6\fcd$a 7ra\aiav, 
53, 3), filled with combustibles. The wind was favour- 
able, but the Athenians met the fire-ship with materials 
for extinguishing fire (o-fieo-Tripta KcoXv/xara, 53, 4), and 
thereby prevented its approach. 

Thucydides has not informed us, in any part of his 
narrative, of the numbers of land forces on either side, 
but he has named the allies of each party. On that 
of the Athenians there were troops from about thirty 
states of Greece, in alliance with or subjection to 
Athens, added to those of the Greek cities of Thurium 
and Metapontum in Italy, those of Naxus, Catana, 
and Egesta in Sicily, (Agrigentum remained neutral,) 
some Iapyges and Tyrrheni, and the greater part of 
the Siculi. The Syracusans were assisted from Sicily 

1 The Tyrsenian or Tyrrhenian hoplitss were armed like the Greeks, 
as we perceive from numerous monuments lately discovered in Tyr- 
rhenia. 



78 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



by the Greek cities Camarina, Himera, Gela, and 
Selinus, and by some of the Siculi ; from Greece by 
Sparta, Corinth, Leucas, and Ambracia, and by some 
Arcadians, Sicyonii, and Boeotians. 

The Syracusans, having now become masters of the 
great harbour, aimed at nothing less than the capture 
of the entire armament ; and with this view they began 
to close the entrance by anchoring triremes moored 
across the opening, together with sailing vessels and 
barges {rpir\pecn irXaylacs, tcai nfkolois fcdi clkcltols, €7r' 

dy/cvpcbv 6pfjL%ovTe$, 59, 3). 1 The Athenian commanders, 
in notifying to the Catanians their intention of sailing 
from Syracuse, had imprudently authorized a suspen- 
sion of the supplies which they had been in the habit 
of receiving from thence, and in consequence had now 
to add the prospect of starvation to their other diffi- 
culties. Thus circumstanced, they found it prudent 
to abandon their upper walls, to contract their forti- 
fication round the ships to the smallest compass 
sufficient to comprehend their sick and stores (rd ixkv 

Teiyr] ra avco eKknrelv, Trpos Be clvtclis tclIs vavalv dirdka^ovres 
8taT€L%lcrfjLaTL qgov olov T6 ekdyiGTov , &C, 60, 2), and 

leaving a force to protect it, to place all the rest of the 
infantry on board of the best ships, and to hazard a 
general naval action; if victorious, to proceed to 
Catana; and if not, to burn the ships, and to endeavour 
to reach by land some friendly state, whether Hellenic 
or barbaric, that is to say, either of the Greek colonies 
or of the Siculi. 

They descended therefore from the upper walls on 

1 According to Thucydides, the width of the entrance of the bay of 
Syracuse was eight stades : the true measurement is 1 200 yards, or 
about six stades. Diodorus (13, 14) says the Syracusans were three 
days employed in this operation. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



79 



the SOUthem cliffs of Epipolse, 1 (e/e T€ yap rwv ava) 

Tecxfiv {nrofcaTeftrjo-av, 60, 3,) and manned about 110 
ships : every hoplite, who by age was suited to the 
service, was obliged to embark ; and to them were 
added many bow-men and javelin-men of Acarnania 
and other foreign states. Nicias made a speech to his 
troops, in which he insisted upon the advantage to be 
derived from the grappling -irons {^(elpes crcSripeai) with 
which the Athenian ships had been fitted, as they 
would render boarding easy, after which the hoplitae 
embarked had only to do their duty. But Gylippus — to 
whom every thing which now passed in the enemy's 
camp seems to have been known — had already pro- 
vided a covering of leather for the prows of his ships, 
to obviate the effect of the grapples (ras yap irpwpas /cal 
TTjs vews avco eirl 7ro\v Kareftvpcrwaav, 65, 3) ; and he re- 
marked, in a speech addressed to his troops, that ' the 
crowd of landsmen whom the enemy had placed on 
board, and their numerous ships, forced to act in a 
small space, could not fail to create confusion.' 

Nicias drew out the remainder of the land forces 
on the sea-side, while Demosthenes, Menander, and 
Euthydemus advanced with the fleet, directly across 
the great harbour, against the barrier of ships at the 
entrance, with the intention of forcing it : evBvs eifkeov 
irpbs to ^evyfia rov \c/jl6i>os, teal rov KaraXrj^OevTa {oil. 
-eifyOevTa, irapaXrjtyOivra, -eb^>6evra) hiiicifkovv, fiovXofievoi, 

pidaao-dai is to ego). 2 (69, 4.) Of the Syracusan ships, 

1 rov di \onrbv o^kov eWr/o-e Trapa tt)v Oakaa-aav 6 NtKt'ay, e/c\t7r<»i> to 
piya o-TpaxoireSov Kai ra rei^ ra uvvcmrovra irphs to 'HpaicXeiov. (Plut. 
Nic. 24.) This is the only datum, I believe, for the situation of the 
temple of Hercules. 

2 The Scholiast reads mTdkeifyOivTa, and supposes that an opening 
had been left in the ^rOy/m : but the nature of the Athenian attack 



80 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



which in number were nearly as before, some were 
stationed for the protection of the barrier, the re- 
mainder round the harbour, in order to fall upon the 
enemy on every side, while the land forces were simi- 
larly disposed on the shore opposite to the ships. 
Sicanus and Agatharchus commanded on the right and 
left ; Pythen, the Corinthian, in the centre. The 
Athenians, having arrived at the barrier, succeeded at 
first in overpowering some of the ships which com- 
posed it, and were endeavouring to detach the fasten- 
ings, when they were attacked on every side by the 
Syracusans : eiretBr) 6° ol 'AOrjvcuoi 7rpo(refjLLcryov rep ^evj/jbarc y 
rfj fjuev 7rp(0T7] pv/Mrj eirLifXeovre9 eKpdrovv rcov reraypbivcov 
vetov irpos aira>, kcll eireipcovTO Xveiv ras KXyaets' fiera Be 
TOVTO, &c. (70, 2.) 

The action soon became general throughout the 
harbour. In such a crowd of vessels, amounting to- 
gether to near 200, attacks with the beak (ippdkai) 
were much less common than those alongside {irpoa- 
fidXal). Great skill was shown on both sides by the 
officers (KvPepvrjTcu) , and promptitude by the seamen 
(vavrcu) ; nor was there less emulation on the part of 
the soldiers embarked (e7r iff drat) , in their attempts to 
board their adversaries, after the discharge of arrows, 
darts, and stones, as the opponent ships approached 
each other. So great was the noise, that those who 
gave out the orders {KekevaTai) could seldom make 
themselves heard. At length, the Athenians were 
every where turned to flight. 

The land forces on both sides had beheld the spec- 
tacle with the utmost anxiety. Of the Athenians, 



upon the barrier is adverse to this supposition, which is otherwise 
unlikely. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



81 



some endeavoured to assist such of the ships as escaped 
from capture, and took refuge at the camp ; others 
turned their attention to the safety of their walls, — for 
there was now a probability, observes the historian, 
that they might experience what they had caused the 
Lacedaemonians to suffer at Pylus, who, after the de- 
struction of their ships, had lost also their men on 
shore. But they still possessed about sixty serviceable 
ships, while the Syracusans had not so many as fifty. 
Demosthenes proposed, therefore, to endeavour again 
to force the passage early the next morning. Nicias 
consented to make the attempt, but the seamen refused 
to embark ; and so completely were they morally 
subdued, that, during the second day after the battle, 
they allowed the Syracusans to tow away all their own 
ships, except a few which had been burnt by the 
Athenians. 

In the mean time, Hermocrates, on the first of these 
two days, had proposed to the Syracusan commanders 
to send some of their men to break up the roads and 
occupy the passes, as he feared greatly the effect of 
such a land force, should it obtain a footing in the 
interior of Sicily. But his proposition was overruled, 
on the ground that the Syracusans were fatigued with 
their exertions, and wished to enjoy the festival of 
Hercules, which happened to be on that day. 1 

Hermocrates, therefore, in order to gain time, and 
prevent the Athenians from marching that night, sent 
persons, in friendly guise, to the gate of their camp, 
desiring them not to march, as the Syracusans were 
guarding the passes ; — a stratagem which not only 

1 They recovered possession of the temple of Hercules when the 
Athenians abandoned their upper walls. — Plut. Nic. 24. 

L 



82 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



produced the desired effect, but induced the Athenians 
to remain all the ensuing day, in order to furnish 
themselves as much as possible with whatever would 
be useful on their intended march ; while Gylippus 
and the land forces under him proceeded to block up 
the roads, and occupy the fords and other places where 
the enemy was likely to pass. 

On the third day after the battle, the Athenians, 
leaving their sick and wounded in the camp, and 
carrying with them a very insufficient store of provi- 
sions, in the expectation of meeting a supply from 
some of the friendly Siculi, marched in two bodies, the 
first commanded by Nicias, the second by Demo- 
sthenes. The hoplitse in each body formed a hollow 
quadrangle, (to & lywpu ev irXaialq) reray/JLevov, 78, 2,) 
within which were the baggage, the light-armed, and 
the followers (rot's tie aicevofyopovs kcll tov rrXeiarov o^Xov 
ivT09 elxov ol oifXlraC). They found the ferry of the 
Anapus occupied by the enemy, but made good their 
passage, though annoyed in their subsequent march 
by his horse and light-armed. After a march of 40 
stades, they halted for the night on a hill, from whence 
they advanced in the morning 20 stades, and then 
encamped in a plain, (%a>plov airehov tl, 78, 4,) for the 
sake of obtaining provisions and water, which latter 
was scarce during a distance of many stades on the 
road they were about to take. Their march was 
directed upon Catana, by the vale of the Anapus, and 
round the western side of Mount Hybla, the maritime 
road from Syracuse to Catana being closed against 
them. 

It appears, therefore, that they crossed the Anapus 
near the modern bridge over that river, situated about 
a mile and a half from the head of the great harbour, 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



83 



and that, having marched four miles further along the 
right bank of the Anapus, they halted for the night on 
the heights about a mile south of the Cavetta, a preci- 
pitous gorge so called, where the Anapus issues from 
the heights of Mount Hybla, and is immediately joined 
by the branch from Floridia and S. Paulo. The inha- 
bited plain into which they moved on the following 
morning is evidently that of Floridia, and their position 
appears to have been near the site of that town. Here 
they remained during that day, while the Syracusans 
were employed in obstructing their line of march, and 
in fortifying a strong height in that direction, called 
the Acraean rock, on either side of which there 
was a precipitous ravine : r/v Be Xofos /caprepos /cat 
€Karep(odev avrov yapoZpa fcprjfjLvcoBrjs' i/caXelro Be ' Aicpaiov 
XeW 1 (78, 5.) ' 

On the following day the Athenians moved forward, 
but were so much annoyed by the enemy's horsemen 
and light-armed, that they returned to their former 
station, though it afforded no supplies, and the com- 
munication around them was cut off by the enemy's 
cavalry. The next morning they again advanced to 
the fortified hill, (rov \d<j>ov roy airoreTei^Lcrfjuevov^ 79, 1,) 
but found the enemy so well protected by their wall, 
and by the light-armed on the steep slope of the height 
behind them, that the Athenians were again obliged to 
retire, having been somewhat disheartened also by a 

1 The 'KKpalov XeVas appears not to have had any connection with 
Acrse, a colony of Syracuse, of which there are considerable remains 
at Acremonte, near Palazzuolo. Acrse is about 20 miles (24 m. p., 
Antonin. et Peuting. Itin.) due west of Syracuse, whereas the 
Acrsean rock was in a north-westerly direction, and not more than 
ten or eleven miles distant from Syracuse. It has not yet been iden- 
tified. 



84 NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 

thunder-storm. Gylippus, at the same time, sent a 
division of his army into the rear of his opponents, to 
obstruct their retreat in the direction by which they 
had come, {airoTei^iovvTas €K tov oirm&eVy 79, 4,) but they 
were able to frustrate this attempt, and, advancing 
further into the plain, they remained there that night. 
In moving forward the next day, they were surrounded 
by the enemy, many of their rear and stragglers were 
cut off, and many others were wounded by missiles ; 
so that they had not advanced more than five or six 
stades, before they found it necessary to halt in the 
plain, where they remained that night, and where 
Nicias and Demosthenes determined to change their 
line of march, and, instead of pursuing the route to- 
wards Catana, to turn towards the other side of Sicily, 
and to take the direction of Camarina or of Gela. 

Endeavouring to deceive the enemy, therefore, by 
making fires, they moved off in the night, but not 
without some confusion ; so that the division of De- 
mosthenes, amounting to more than half the army, 
became separated from that of Nicias, and followed at 
some distance in a less orderly manner. In the morn- 
ing (afia $e rfj eq> 3 80, 4) the whole army arrived near 
the sea, and fell into the Helorine way (rrjv 6&v tt}v 
'EXwpivrjv Ka\ov/n6V7]v) , which they pursued until they 
arrived at the river Cacyparis, which they intended to 
ascend, (nrapa tov TTora/JLov locev avco 8ia [JLeaojelas ,) hoping 
to meet some of the Siculi, to whom they had sent for 
that purpose. Hence it appears that the distance 
between the Athenian camp in the plain of Floridia, 
and the Helorine way near the sea, to the northward 
of the Cacyparis, was about two-thirds of a night's 
march; for they moved in the night (ku rrj wktI, 80, 3), 
and the beginning of the night had been consumed 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



85 



in deliberation. The distance of the Cassibili from 
Floridia is about ten miles by the road ; this river, 
therefore, being moreover the first of any magnitude 
to the south of Syracuse, seems clearly to be the 
ancient Cacyparis. 

At the river the Athenians found a Syracusan guard 
obstructing the ford with a wall and palisade {duo- 

rei^l^ovcrdv re /ecu diroaravpovaav rov irdpov, 80, 5), an 

effect apparently of the provision made by Gylippus 
and the Syracusans for occupying the fords and passes 
round Syracuse (rcov pelOpcov koI 7rora/Jbcov tcls SLaftdaeis 
ecpvXacraov, 74, 2), before the Athenians had moved 
from thence, and while it was yet uncertain in what 
direction they would march. The Athenians, having 
forced the passage of the Cacyparis, moved on towards 
the Erineus. The division of Demosthenes, which 
was 50 stades in the rear of that of Nicias, was over- 
taken by the Syracusans about the hour of dinner 
(irepl dplarov copav, 81, 1), and had no more than time 
to form in order of battle, when they were surrounded 
and attacked in a walled enclosure of olive-trees, 
having a road through it, into which they had retired 

(dv€i\.7]6evTes 'is tl ywpiov^ a> kvkKw fjuev Teiyiov irepirjv, 6Bos 
Be evOev re teal evOev, ekdas Srj ovk 6\tyas €l^€V } e/SaXkovro 

irepLGTahdv, 81, 3). Here they suffered so much during 
the remainder of the day from the enemy's missiles, — 
for he avoided close action, — that, when at night Gy- 
lippus, in his own name and that of the Syracusans 
and their allies, offered the Athenians their lives on 
condition of submission, they accepted the terms. 
They were 6000 in number : each man, in delivering 
up his arms, placed the money he had with him in his 
shield : the whole amount filled four shields. The 
prisoners were then marched off to Syracuse. 



86 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



The next day, Gylippus continued in pursuit of 
Nicias, who, in the course of the preceding day, had 
arrived at the Erineus, and, having crossed that river, 
had halted on a height beyond it. Here he was in- 
formed by the Syracusans of the surrender of Demo- 
sthenes ; and having been permitted to send a horseman 
to assure himself of the fact, he then made offer to the 
enemy to defray all the expenses which the Syracusans 
had incurred by the war, and to deliver an Athenian 
as a hostage for each talent. But Gylippus and the 
Syracusans rejected these conditions, and assailed the 
enemy on all sides with missiles. This lasted until 
the evening, when the Athenians found themselves in 
great distress for want of provisions : during the night 
they made an ineffectual attempt to retreat, but were 
unable to elude the enemy's vigilance ; and it was not 
until the morning that they were once more in motion, 
when they hastened forward to the river Assinarus 

(rjirelyovro irpos rov ^Aacrlvapov irorajjbbv, 84, 2), urged by 

thirst and the hope of finding, if they could pass the 
river, some protection from the horsemen and light- 
armed, who incessantly annoyed them. But the 
enemy attacked them at the passage of the Assinarus, 
and thus threw them into confusion while pressing 
forward to the stream, which flowed between precipi- 
tous banks (rjv Se KpyfivcoSes, 84, 4). Some were carried 
down the current {e^iraXao-aofievoi /careppeov, 84, 3), and 
many fell either by the missiles of the enemy's light- 
armed, or by the swords of the Peloponnesians who 
descended into the ravine, or by the horsemen, when 
any attempted to escape. The water, muddy as it was, 
and discoloured by blood, was still eagerly drunk by 
the Athenians. Nicias now surrendered to Gylippus, 
to whom and the Lacedaemonians he left the disposal 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



87 



of his own fate, requesting, at the same time, that the 
slaughter should cease : upon which, Gylippus gave 
orders to make prisoners (faypelv exeXeve, 85, 2), and 
his surviving enemies laid down their arms, including 
300 who had made good their passage through the 
Syracusan guards in the preceding night, but who 
were speedily overtaken. 

The whole number collected, however, was not 
great ; for the loss sustained, as well at the Assinarus 
as in the preceding attacks, had been more severe than 
on any occasion during the Sicilian war ; and many 
were concealed by the victorious soldiers, to be sold as 
slaves for their own profit. 

As the route of the Athenians appears to have been 
changed after forcing the passage of the Cacyparis, 
and, instead of following up that river to the north- 
westward, to have been directed to the south-westward 
upon Camarina, where, as appears from some former 
transactions (Thucyd. 6, 88), they were likely in their 
present condition to meet with assistance, — it is pro- 
bable, that in approaching the site of the modern 
Noto, they quitted the Helorine way and the vicinity 
of the sea-shore ; — and that, having crossed the river 
Falconara, probably not far from Noto, they en- 
camped upon a height on the right bank of that 
river. The day's march, on this supposition, w T as 
about twelve miles. The next day they hastened for- 
ward to the Assinarus, but their march, under the 
circumstances, could not have been of more than three 
or four miles ; at which distance, from the Falconara 
to the south-west, occurs the river Abisso, not far from 
its exit from the hills of Spaccafurno. I am inclined 
to believe, therefore, that the river Falconara is the 
ancient Erineus, and the Abisso the Assinarus ; and 



88 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



consequently, that the Assinarus and Helorus were 
one and the same river : the latter name having pre- 
vailed probably towards the sea, where the city Helorus 
stood. Examples of a double name, under similar 
circumstances, are not uncommon in ancient geogra- 
phy, — and, we may add, in all ages ; for this river, 
although now known as the Abisso in the lower part 
of its course, is named Atellari in the upper, 1 possibly a 
corruption of Assinarus. From the name of the river 
a festival was celebrated at Syracuse, called the Assi- 
naria. 

The prisoners, both the Athenians and their allies, 
were confined in the stone quarries. Nicias and De~ 

1 Fazello, de Rebus Siculis, p. 111. — The following considerations 
may be stated in support of the identity. The Erineus is the only 
river noticed by Ptolemy (in his text it is Orinus) between Cape 
Pachynum and Syracuse ; from which circumstance, as well as from 
its mention by Thucydides and other authors, we may infer that it 
was a river of some importance. Now, there are but two such rivers 
between the Cassibili or Cacyparis and Cape Pachynum, namely, the 
Falconara and the Abisso ; and of these the Falconara is not of suffi- 
cient magnitude, nor are its banks sufficiently precipitous, for the 
circumstances of the last defeat of Nicias. But with the Abisso these 
circumstances perfectly accord. Its modern name alone inclines one 
to believe that it was the river intended by Thucydides. I am aware 
that Sicilian antiquaries, under the persuasion that the Falconara is 
the ancient Assinarus, sometimes name it the Assinaro : this, how- 
ever, is not an old tradition, but the consequence of a modern opinion, 
and cannot be adduced as an evidence on the question, any more 
than the Pizzuta or Guglia which is seen in the plain of Helorus, near 
the sea, a few miles to the southward of Noto, and which is supposed 
to mark the site of the capture of Nicias, can be taken as a proof of 
that locality. Its position, in fact, between the two rivers and near 
the sea, will not agree with the evidence of Thucydides. There can 
be little doubt that the Pizzuta, like another ancient Guglia of the 
same kind, near Magnisi, which stood on the great route from Syra- 
cuse to the northward, was the sepulchral stele of some individual or 
family. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



89 



mosthenes were put to death ; the former chiefly at 
the instigation of the Corinthians, supported by the 
Syracusans who had been in secret correspondence 
with Nicias, and contrary to the wishes of Gylippus ; 
for the Lacedaemonians were grateful to Nicias for his 
conduct in favour of their countrymen taken at Pylus, 
while they bore a contrary feeling towards Demo- 
sthenes, who was the victorious commander at the 
same place. During eight months, the Athenians and 
their allies of the Sicilian and Italian Greek cities 
suffered the extreme of misery in the quarries, exposed 
without shelter to the sun, and the cold nights of 
winter, with a scanty allowance of food and water. 
The other captives, at the end of seventy days, were 
sold as slaves : all Sicily, says the historian, was filled 
with them. The whole number made prisoners was 
about 7000. 

Thus ended this imprudent enterprise : a result not 
unusual in such distant expeditions, but, in the present 
instance, disastrous in the extreme ; chiefly in conse- 
quence of the inability of the commander, who, how- 
ever deserving of the encomium of Thucydides, 1 was 
unfit for the . circumstances in which he was placed ; 
and who was still more unfortunate in having for an 
opponent one who, although strongly tainted with the 
Spartan vices of covetousness and dishonesty, was one 
of the most able commanders whose actions have been 
recorded in the history of Greece. 



The victory of Gelon at Himera had liberated Sicily 
from the barbarians for seventy years, or at least had 

1 -qKicrra 8rj agios &v tcov ye iif efiov 'EXkrjvcov is tovto Sua-rt^i'd? 
a<piK€crdai, Sia ttjv nacrav is apeTrjv vevop,icr\iivi)v iiriTrjdevaiv. Thucyd. 7 S 
56, 5. 

M 



90 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



confined them to Panormus and the harbours of the 
western extremity of the island, when a renewal of the 
quarrel between the same two republics, Selinus and 
Egesta, which had brought the Athenians to Syracuse, 
now caused a renewal of Carthaginian invasion. The 
Egestaei, no longer supported by Athens, craved assist- 
ance from Carthage : an immense armament was sent 
to Sicily in the spring of the year 410 b.c, and Selinus 
fell before the Syracusans could come to its assistance. 
In this year and the three following, the Carthaginians 
made themselves masters of Himera, Acragas, Gela, 
and Camarina. Dionysius, a young man who had 
been attached to the party of Hermocrates, the suc- 
cessful leader of the Syracusans against Nicias, and 
who had been severely wounded in a combat of fac- 
tions which had been fatal to Hermocrates, was sent 
to Gela, with a force of 2000 men and 400 horse, at 
the moment when Acragas had been already taken, 
and Gela was threatened as the next object of the 
invaders. Dionysius succeeded in quelling the internal 
commotions at Gela, which were the chief obstacle to 
any hope of successful resistance to the enemy ; but 
the moment appearing favourable to him for obtaining 
the chief command at home, he led back his forces to 
Syracuse. He was successful in obtaining the post of 
military chief, with supreme power (o-rparrjyb^ avro- 
Kparap), but not without a colleague, Hipparinus, 
whose daughter Dionysius afterwards married. 1 

In the course of a few years, Dionysius reduced to 
obedience iEtna, Enna, Catana, Naxus, and Leontium, 
and carried on the war with the Carthaginians with an 
alternation of success, In the year 397 b. c. he ad- 



1 Diodor. 13, 54, seq. Plutarch. Dion. 3. Aristot. Polit. 5, 6. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



91 



vanced to the furthest extremity of Sicily, and took 
Motya, after a most obstinate resistance ; but in the 
following year was himself besieged in Syracuse by a 
Carthaginian fleet, which occupied all the western and 
southern side of the great harbour, while an immense 
army was encamped around Polichne. It was on this 
occasion that Himilco plundered the great temples of 
Ceres and Proserpine, built by Gelon from the Cartha- 
ginian spoils, which stood in the yet unprotected 
suburb of Temenium, and applied the materials of the 
tombs within his reach, particularly that of Gelon and 
Damareta, to the protection of his camp and the erec- 
tion of three fortresses, at Plemmyrium, Polichne, and 
Dascon. 1 But as soon as the Syracusan fleet had 
been joined by thirty ships from the Peloponnesus and 
Italy, Dionysius concerted an attack upon the enemy 
with his brother Leptines, who commanded the fleet. 
Dionysius marched in the night to the temple of 
Cyane, and at day-break attacked the enemy by land, 
while Leptines, with eighty ships, crossed the harbour, 
and attacked the enemy, unprepared for action, with 
the most fortunate result. At Dascon, forty of the 
enemy's penteconters had been drawn up on shore, 
and some triremes, with the transports of the arma- 
ment, were at anchor in the adjacent part of the bay. 
Dascon was assailed simultaneously by some Syracusan 
triremes and by the cavalry of Dionysius. The Punic 

1 Diodor. 14, 63. Mitford has committed a grievous error in 
mistaking Temenium, the suburb of Achradina, for Achradina itself. 
Had Achradina been taken, all Syracuse would have been in posses- 
sion of the Carthaginians, except the island. But it is evident that 
neither in this nor in any other of the Carthaginian expeditions 
against Syracuse did they succeed in effecting a lodgement within the 
walls. 



92 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



ships were set on fire : the conflagration spread to the 
transports, and many of these, detached and floating 
about the harbour, were taken and brought to the city 
by some of those who, on account of their youth or 
age, had been left at home. To the people of Syra- 
cuse it was a theatrical spectacle, 1 afforded to them by 
the vengeance of the two plundered goddesses. 

Himilco now submitted to pay 300 talents for per- 
mission to retire without impediment to Africa, leaving 
the Siculi to retreat as they best might into their for- 
tresses, his Iberian auxiliaries to enlist in the service 
of Syracuse, and his other barbarian allies to become 
slaves to the Syracusans. 2 Success continued gene- 
rally to attend Dionysius against the Carthaginians, as 
well as his other opponents in Sicily. He was equally 
fortunate in contending with some of the great cities 
of the southern shores of Italy, and in establishing a 
permanent influence in others. In the Adriatic he 
built the city Lissus in the island of that name, and 
assisted the Parians in colonizing Pharus. At home 
the course of his authority experienced so little in- 
terruption, that he was enabled to employ it in the 
maintenance of peace and security, in the encou- 
ragement of letters and the arts, in building temples 
of the gods, and generally in the aggrandizement and 
embellishment of Syracuse, so that it became one of 
the most beautiful as well as the greatest of Greek 
cities. 3 

1 rols eK tt)S noXecos BearpiKrjv o~vve'(3aive yiveaOai rrjv Beav. — Diodor. 
14, 73. 2 Diodor. 14, 75. 

3 rei^os irepiefiaXe rfj Trohei, ttjXikovto to peyedos, aWe rrj noXet 
yeveo~6ai tov nepifioXov peytcrTov rcov 'EXkrjvibcov iroXecov . . . Beoiv re vaovs 
KaTeo~K.eva.o~e Ka\ r aXXa to. avvreivovra npbs av£rjo~iv noXecos koi bo^av. — 
Diodor. 15, 13. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



03 



The effects and example of the administration of 
Dionysius continued to be felt during ten years of the 
reign of his son, Dionysius II., and until they were 
interrupted by the dissensions between the tyrant and 
his uncle, Dion, and by the exile of the latter, who re- 
turned in b.c. 357, landed at Heracleia, in the Cartha- 
ginian territory, at a moment when Dionysius was in 
Italy, and marched, with continually increasing forces, 
to SjTacuse. 1 Timocrates guarded Epipolae : the island 
was secure in the hands of the Dionysians ; but Dion 
having been met on approaching the city by some of 
the leading citizens favourable to his cause, advanced 
without opposition to the agora of Achradina, and was 
followed by the entire force which he had collected 
from Acragas, Gela, Camarina, and other cities. He 
then made an oration from the sun-dial which Dio- 
nysius I. had erected below the Pentapyla; 2 after 
which the Syracusans who joined him proceeded to 
circumvallate the acropolis by a wall, which extended 
from Port Lacceius to the shore of the great harbour. 3 
On the seventh day from Dion's arrival, Dionysius 

1 Diodor. 16, 9. Plutarch. Dion, 25. Many o^pela, adverse to 
Dionysius, are reported to have been observed when Dion was 
approaching Sicily. Among them, the water of the sea near the 
acropolis was one day found to be sweet and potable (rj npo<TK\v£ovo-a 
irpbs tt]V 3 ' KKpoTTokiv 6akacro~a plav rjpepav to vdcop yXvKv Kai Troripov 

napeo-xcv, Dion, 24). The submarine source called the Occhio della 
Zilica must always in some degree sweeten the water between it and 
the fortress, and may sometimes discharge a greater quantity of 
fresh water than usual ; and this the soothsayer may have converted 
to his own purpose. 

2 vtto tt}v ' KKpoivokiv Kai to. TLtvTcnrvka. — Plutarch. Dion 29. 

3 tS>v §e SvpaKovcrlcov KaTaaKevaKOTCov dno SaXaTTtjs (Is QakaTTav 
Stare ix^o-para. — Diodor. 16, 12. rrjv 'AKponoXiv an(T(ix L ^ v '• — Plut. 

Dion, 29, 



94 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



returned to Syracuse, and entered the acropolis ; soon 
after which he sallied with all his forces against Dion, 
and a severe contest ensued between the Pentapyla 
and the not yet completed wall of circumvallation, in. 
which Dion was wounded and nearly taken, but was 
rescued by the Syracusans, who at length drove the 
Dionysians, chiefly mercenary troops, within the gates 
of the citadel. Dionysius now endeavoured to enter 
into a treaty with Dion ; but the latter made pretexts 
for delay, until the wall was completed between the 
two harbours, and then rejected the conditions. In 
the following year, the fleet of Dionysius, under the 
aged Philistus the historian, was defeated by the 
Syracusans under Heracleides. Philistus was made 
prisoner, and put to death, and Dionysius retired to 
Italy, leaving his son Apollocrates in command of the 
acropolis. 1 By the influence of Heracleides, Dion was 
soon afterwards driven into retreat at Leontium, when 
Nypsius of Neapolis, sent from Locri by Dionysius 
with a reinforcement to his party, fortunately made 
good his entrance into the great port, where he an- 
chored near the fountain Arethusa (jrepi rrjv 'ApeOovcrav, 
Diod. 16, 18), and thus threw succours into the island 
at the very moment when Apollocrates had agreed 
upon surrendering to the Syracusans. The latter 
attacked and destroyed a part of the armament of 
Nypsius ; but while they were rejoicing for the vic- 
tory, Nypsius made a sortie in the night, surprised the 
guards of the circumvallation, and forcing open its 
gates, entered the agora, and was followed by all the 
Dionysian garrison of the island, who speedily carried 
conflagration, slaughter, and pillage into every quarter 

1 Diodor. 16, 17, seq. Plutarch. Dion. 27, seq. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



95 



of the city. The next day, Dion, to whom the Syra- 
cusans had sent to implore assistance, arrived at 
Hexapyla (^kc irpos rd 'EgdirvXa, Diod. 16, 20), where 
he put his troops in order (Siardgas <tt par Moras), and 
was met by numerous suppliants begging for his assist- 
ance in arresting the work of destruction, which was 
still in progress. Dion surprised the Dionysians as 
they w T ere still engaged in plundering the houses, and 
slew great numbers of them. The remainder escaped 
into the acropolis. 1 The Syracusans rewarded Dion 
by declaring him o-rparriyb? avroKpdrcop, and granted 
him the honours of a hero (ri^ds dirivei^ev ^pwiKas) . 

In the year 353 B.C., Dion fell a victim to the 
treachery of a pretended friend, Callippus, an Athe- 
nian, 2 who then obtained the government (^ye/xovla, 
Diod. 16, 31), and held it (%>ffe) thirteen months. An 
interval of six years then occurred, of which nothing 
is known, except that the last dynast of Syracuse (rbv 
KparovvTCL twv Svpa/covcTicovj Plut. Timol. 1) was named 
Nysseus, and that he was expelled by Dionysius him- 
self, who thus regained Syracuse after a ten years' 
exile. 3 The dissensions and the misgovernment which 
had followed the death of Dion had so impaired the 
strength of Syracuse, and its influence for the safety 
of Hellenic Sicily, that the Carthaginians were again 
tempted to invade the eastern parts of the island. 
The Syracusans now implored the aid of Corinth, its 
metropolis, and, in the year 345 b. c, Timoleon was 
sent to its assistance. 4 

1 oi Xowroi avv€(j>vyov ey ttjv , AKpo7roXii>, Kai ray 7rv\as Kkelo-avres £§€<j)v- 
yov tov Kivhvvov. — Diodor. 16, 20. 

2 Diodor. 16, 31. Plutarch. Dion. 57. Corn. Nep. Dion. 

3 Diodor. 16, 68. Plutarch. Timol. 1. 

4 Diodor. 16, 65; 68. Plutarch. Timol. 7. 



96 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



At the time of his arrival in Sicily, Icetas, a Syra- 
cusan who had become tyrant of Leontium, was in 
alliance with the Carthaginians, and was master of all 
Syracuse, except the acropolis and the island, still held 
by Dionysius, but which Icetas had circumvallated 
and was besieging. 1 Timoleon obtained possession of 
Tauromenium, defeated Icetas, who advanced against 
him, near Adranum on Mount iEtna, and entered into 
alliance with Mamercus, tyrant of Catana, from which 
place he found means, in spite of the Punic fleet, to 
throw a body of Corinthians into the island. Here 
they found 2000 men ready to join them, and an 
immense provision of warlike stores {TeO^aavpia-jjievcov 
Ik TraXacov, Timol. 13). Dionysius now resigned his 
power to Timoleon, and escaping to Catana, was sent 
to Corinth in a single ship. While Icetas and Mago 
the Carthaginian were employed in an expedition 
against Catana, Neon, who commanded in the island, 
attacked and captured Achradina, the strongest part 
of the city (to KparLarov Kai dOpavcrTorarov fiepos 7ro\€co9, 
Timol. 18), and united it by works of defence with the 

acropolis {avvd^ras tols epv[Jba<Ji irpbs rrjv * Aicpdiro\iv) . 

Timoleon, joined by a body of Corinthians, who, in the 
absence of the Carthaginian ships, had crossed the 
strait at Rhegium, now marched at the head of 4000 
men to Syracuse, and, to his astonishment, found, on 
his arrival, that the entire Carthaginian armament had 
suddenly quitted Syracuse, and had sailed for Africa. 
Icetas still remained master of Tycha, Epipobe, and 
Neapolis ; but Timoleon, dividing his forces into three 

1 c O yap 'iKerrjs po-XI) vevLKrjKots Aiovvcriov, Kai to. irkelo-Ta pepr) ra>v 
IZvpaKova&v Karei\r](pa>s, iKeivou pev els rrjv ' KnpoTYokiv Kai rrjv KaXovpevrjv 
N^crov a-vvecrraXpevov avros o-vv€7rokiopKei Kai crw/x7repierei^t^e. — Plutarch. 
Timol. 9. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



97 



portions, advanced from Achradina against Icetas in 
Tycha, attacked those in Neapolis from towards the 
Anapus, and was completely victorious, as well in 
those points as in Epipolae. 1 His first action, when 
master of the entire city, was to invite the citizens 
to destroy the works of the tyrants, regardless of 
their beauty and perfection (to tcdWo? Kal t^v ttoXv- 
T€\eiav rrjs KaracrKevrj^) ; and, accordingly, they sub- 
verted not only the fortress (rrjv a/cpav), but the 
palaces, and even the tombs, of the tyrants (ras 
olfclas koI ra fAvrj/jLara, tcov rvpdwwv) . 2 Timoleon pro- 
ceeded to re-establish and reform the republican 
institutions, built Swao-Tripia, or courts of justice, in 
the place of the Tvpawelov, and appointed an annual 
magistracy, namely, that of the dix^lirokos of Jupiter 
Olympius, which continued to the time of Diodorus. 3 
Timoleon received heroic honours from the Syracusans ; 
and during the six years which intervened between 
these events and his death, he overthrew the tyrants 
of Messana, Catana, and Leontium, introduced new 

1 Diodorus asserts (16, 68) that Timoleon, following up his victory- 
over Icetas near Adranura, entered Syracuse before him ; and that 
in the next year he was in possession of all the city (ra Xoma 
rrjs noXttos, 69) except Achradina and Neapolis, which remained in 
the hands of Icetas. But this is not consistent with the continuance 
of Timoleon at Adranum in the former year, or with his having been 
joined near Messana by the troops from Rhegium, before he ad- 
vanced against Syracuse : and it is still more inconsistent with his 
last victorious attack upon Icetas, when it clearly appears that the 
latter had been previously in possession of all Syracuse except the 
island and Achradina, which had been taken by Neon. — Plutarch. 
Timol. 19, seq. 

2 Ti/ioXecoy de napakaficov rrjv vr\vov .... ras /xey /caret vqaov 
di<po7r6\€is Kal ra. rvpavvela Kareaica^ev. — Diodor. 16, 70. 

3 Diodor. 16, 70. Diodorus was thirty years employed on his 
history, which terminated at the year b.c. 60. Diodor. 1, 4. 

N 



98 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



colonies into Syracuse, Acragas, Gela, and Camarina, 
adorned Agyrium, the native place of Diodorus, with 
public buildings, particularly a theatre, which was 
inferior only to that of Syracuse, — cemented the 
alliance of all these cities with Syracuse, — and gained 
a complete victory over the Carthaginians on the river 
Crimisus, in the year b. c. 340 ; the effect of which 
was to confine the Africans, by treaty, to the parts of 
the island westward of the river Lycus or Halycus, 1 
between Selinus and Agrigentum, the same boundary 
which had been fixed at the peace made with them by 
Dionysius I. in the year b. c. 383, 2 but which still left 
them the harbours of Panormus, Drepanum, and 
Lilybseum, 3 — the basis, in fact, of all their power and 
operations in Sicily. 

The state of tranquillity in which the success of 
Timoleon left the southern and western parts of Sicily 
continued to his death in b. c. 337, and for many 
years later, until Agathocles, son of Carcinus, a potter, 
after some fruitless efforts, obtained in 317 b. c. un- 
controlled power at Syracuse, and in 307, in imitation 
of the successors of Alexander, assumed the title of 
Baaikevs.* His restless, cruel, and ambitious temper 
was destructive of the peace and prosperity of Sicily, 
but seems not to have been injurious to Syracuse 

1 Diodor. 16, 77, seq. ; 19, 2. Plutarch. Timol. 25, seq. 

2 Diodor. 15, 17. 

3 Lilybseum was a cape in the district of Motya, sheltering a fine 
harbour on its northern side, and one of the nearest points of Sicily 
to Africa : hence its importance to the Carthaginians. Under their 
protection, a city arose on the cape, which extinguished Motya 
and survived the destruction of Carthage, as the coins inscribed 
AIAYBAIITAN indicate. It still flourishes under its Arabic or Punic 
name Marsala (from Marsa, harbour). 

4 Diodor. 20, 54. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



99 



itself, which increased in magnificence under his admi- 
nistration. 

Defeated in the year 310 b. c. by the Carthaginians, 
on the river Himera, between Gela and Acragas, he 
instantly resolved to endeavour to compensate for this 
disaster by the bold measure of leaving Syracuse to be 
defended by his brother Antandrus, while he himself 
carried the war into Africa, — thus setting an example 
w T hich, followed by the Romans, led to the destruction 
of Carthage. He landed in Africa in the middle of 
August. 1 Having met with extraordinary success, 
he sent advice of it to his brother at Syracuse, w T here 
the intelligence arrived just as Hamilcar had assailed 
the walls with machinery, and had taken a /iea-o7rvpyLov, 2 
though without having been able to keep it. On 
receiving intelligence of the state of affairs in Africa, 
Hamilcar raised the siege, and sent a part of his army 
home. In the following year (b. c. 309) he returned 
to Syracuse, encamped at Polichne, and renewed the 
investment of the city, but was made prisoner in a 
night attack upon Euryalus. This disaster caused the 
w T hole Carthaginian armament to retire from Syracuse ; 
and Antandrus sent the head of Hamilcar to his bro- 
ther in Africa, 3 who, thus encouraged, continued to 
carry on a successful war, and even threatened Car- 
thage itself. In the year 307, how T ever, he found 

1 Diodor. 20, 5. The date is determined by an eclipse of the sun, 
which happened on August 15 (310 b. c), the day after his arrival. 

2 Diodor. 20, 16. To be able to retain a fieaoTrvpyiov, it was neces- 
sary that the tower at either end should be taken. An interesting 
example of the capture of a ixecroirupyiov occurred in the siege of 
Platsea in the year 429 b. c, when a portion of the besieged Pla- 
tseenses made their escape by taking one of the mesopyrgia of the 
circumvallation. — 'Travels in Northern Greece,' ii. p. 362. 

3 Diodor. 20, 30. 



100 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



himself under the necessity of quitting Africa, in con- 
sequence of the state of affairs in Sicily, where the 
Carthaginians, Acragantines, and a strong party of 
Syracusans, although not united with one another, 
were all hostile to Agathocles. Soon after his return 
from Africa, his two sons, whom he had left there, 
were slain by their own troops, who made terms with 
the Carthaginians. Agathocles passed the remainder 
of his reign in prosecuting senseless and sanguinary 
contests in Sicily, until, in b. c. 289, he was poisoned 
by Msenon of Segesta, whom he had enslaved when he 
destroyed that city. Meenon was instigated to the 
deed by Archagathus, the grandson of Agathocles, 
who murdered also his uncle Agathocles, and was 
himself assassinated by Msenon. 1 

The Syracusans returned for a moment to demo- 
cratic institutions, confiscated the personal property of 
Agathocles, and threw down his statues, but were 
soon under the necessity of conferring the strategia 
upon Icetas, as their leader against Msenon, who had 
made an alliance with the Carthaginians. 2 Icetas held 
the supreme authority for nine years, during which he 
was opposed to Phintias, tyrant of Acragas, and to 
the Africans, with varying success ; but the latter at 
length became so formidable, that Acragas itself joined 
Syracuse and Leontium in craving the aid of Pyrrhus, 
who had married a daughter of Agathocles, and was 

1 Diodor. 21, eel. 12. 

2 Diodor. 21, eel. 13. Fifty years had elapsed since the death of 
Icetas, Syracusan tyrant of Leontium ; and as we often find the same 
names in the alternate generations, the Strategus Icetas may have 
been his grandson. The name occurs a third time as that of a 
Syracusan philosopher, who held that the heavens stood still, while 
the earth moved. Theophr. ap. Cicer. Tusc. Qu. 4, 39. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



101 



then in Italy opposed to the Romans. Pyrrhus, in 
possession of Syracuse, and joined by the forces of the 
other great cities, soon drove the Carthaginians to the 
western end of the island, and was even master, for a 
short time, of Panormus and Eryx, confining the 
enemy to Lilybeeum alone, where all his efforts against 
them failed ; but his extortions and his preparations 
for carrying the war into Africa so alienated the Sici- 
lians from him, that many joined the Mamertines of 
Messana, who still resisted Pyrrhus, and some united 
with the Carthaginians ; so that, towards the end of 
the third year, Pyrrhus found himself under the neces- 
sity of returning to Italy, from whence he was soon 
afterwards expelled. 1 

In the same year (275 b. c.) the office of strategus 
autocrator was conferred upon Hieron, son of Hiero- 
cles, a man equally acceptable to the Syracusans for 
his personal qualities and for his descent from the 
hero Gelon. At the commencement of the first Punic 
war, he found himself in opposition to the Romans, in 
consequence of the aid given by the latter to the 
Mamertines, who were still at war with Syracuse ; but 
he soon had the prudence to make terms with such a 
formidable adversary, and reaped the benefit of it by 
the quiet possession, during the remainder of his long 
reign, of the Syracusan territory, as well as of Tauro- 
menium, Leontium, Megara, Acras, Neetum, and 
Helorus, while the remainder of Sicily continued to 
be the principal scene of the first Punic war, which 
terminated in 241 b. c. Hieron became king (fiaatXew) 
in the year 269, visited Rome in 237, and died in 
216. 

1 Diodor. 22, eel. 1 1. 14. Plutarch. Pyrr. 22, seq. Liv. Epit. 14. 
Appian, Samnit. 11. 12. 



102 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



The advantages which for fifty years had been de- 
rived by both parties from the alliance of Syracuse 
and Rome, were lost in a moment by the conduct of 
Hieronymus, the grandson and successor of Hieron, 
one of whose first actions was to make an alliance 
with Carthage for the purpose of expelling the Romans 
from Sicily. This design, at the end of little more 
than a year, was fatal to Hieronymus, who was driven 
from Syracuse, and murdered at Leontium by the 
democratic Syracusans, who proceeded to destroy all 
the remaining members of the family of Hieron, con- 
sisting of three daughters, with their husbands, and 
two unmarried grand-daughters. Zoippus alone, who 
had been sent by Hieronymus to Egypt, escaped. 
Nevertheless, the party favourable to the Romans 
was unsuccessful in maintaining the alliance. Hippo- 
crates and Epicydes, two Carthaginians of Syracusan 
extraction, who had made the treaty with Hieronymus, 
and had been deputed to conduct the affairs of Car- 
thage in Sicily, had the dexterity to cause themselves, 
after the extinction of the royal race, to be appointed 
strategi. Notwithstanding a decree of the Syracusans 
in favour of alliance with the Romans, they took an 
early opportunity to occupy Leontium, and, on pre- 
tence of securing that place, adopted hostile measures 
against the neighbouring allies of Rome. 1 

M. Claudius Marcellus immediately attacked and 
occupied Leontium, but Hippocrates and Epicydes 
had escaped from its citadel to Herbessus. Hither 
8000 Syracusans of the party opposed to them 
directed their march. In front, however, there hap- 
pened to be 600 Cretans who had been in the service 
of Hieronymus, and were well inclined to Hannibal, as 

1 Polyb. 7, 2, seq. Liv. 24, 4, seq. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



103 



having been indebted to him for their liberty when his 
prisoners at the Trasimene lake ; and there were other 
mercenaries among the 8000, from whom little energy 
could be expected. Partly by the influence of Hippo- 
crates and Epicydes over these troops, and partly by 
false accounts of severities exercised by the Romans 
at Leontium, the whole force w T as induced by the two 
generals to return to Syracuse, the leaders of the 
opposite party having fled on perceiving the change of 
sentiment in the army. It was not until one of the 
gates of Hexapylum had been opened, and the troops 
of Hippocrates had begun to enter, that the magis- 
trates within interfered, 1 and entreated the citizens 
not to deliver themselves up to the favourers of 
tyranny. The fear of the Romans, however, which 
formed the argument of the party of Hippocrates, 
prevailed : the other gates were broken down by the 
favourers of that cause within, and Hippocrates occu- 
pied Hexapylum. 2 The opponent leaders then retreated 
into Achradina, but this quarter also was speedily 
taken, when all the magistrates were slain ; the slaves 
and prisoners were set at liberty, and Hippocrates and 
Epicydes were again invested with the supreme mili- 
tary power. 

The Romans now move from Leontium, and pitch 
their camp at the temple of Jupiter Olympius, a mile 

1 "Jam unis foribus Hexapyli apertis, ccepti erant recipi quum 
praetores inter venerunt." — Liv. 24, 32. It seems therefore that new 
praetors (arparriyoY) had been appointed by the party favourable to 
the Romans. 

2 " Nec minore intus vi quam foris porta? effringebantur ; effractisque 
omnibus tuto in Hexapylo agmen receptum est." Hence it is evident 
that Hexapylum was a fortress of considerable dimensions, as appears 
probable also from the description by Diodorus (16, 20) of the en- 
trance of Dion into Syracuse in b. c. 356. See above, p. 95. 



104 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



and a half from the city ; and Hippocrates and Epi- 
cydes having refused all terms, Syracuse is invested 
by sea towards the lower Achradina, and by land near 
the Hexapylum. Marcellus commanded in the former 
direction; in the latter, Appius Claudius Pulcher, who 
with the infantry invested the city on the northern 
side, beginning from the Scythian portico, where the 
city walls stood on the margin of the sea, and where 
he prepared materials for scaling the walls, to the 
eastward of Hexapylum. 1 

Marcellus attacked Achradina with sixty quinque- 
remes full of archers and slingers, for the purpose of 
driving the enemy from the ramparts adjacent to the 
sea, 2 while his own men endeavoured to occupy them 

* "Attttlos . . . . rrj [lev Tr*£r) Bvvdpei Kara ttjv "2kv6lkt]u aroav irpocr- 
ayopevopevr}v s KaQ y rjv eV avrrjs Kelrai rrjs Kpr)7ri8os to reZ^os napa dakao-aav, 
TrepHTTOixto-avTes, eroipao-dpevoi re yeppa Kai fieXr) Kai raXka, &C. . . . 
IlXrjv 6 pev "Amrcos, e'xcw yeppa Kai KkipaKas, e^e^et'pei 7rpoo~<p€p€iv ravra tg> 
cwcltttovtl rots 'E^anvkois curb rcov dvaro\S>v. (Polyb. 8, 5.) It 

has been proposed to substitute Tvx^v v or ^vklktjv for 2kv6ik^v in this 
passage. As to the first of these words, it is true that Tycha was the 
part of Syracuse into which Hexapylum opened; for Livy, (24, 21,) fol- 
lowing Polybius, in describing the entrance into Syracuse of Theodotus 
and Sosis, after the death of Hieronymus, says, " Hexapyla Theo- 
dotus et Sosis post solis occasum jam obscura luce invecti, quum 
cruentam regiam vestem atque insigne capitis ostentarent, travecti 
per Tycham simul ad libertatem simul ad arma vocantes in Achra- 
dinam convenire jubent." But no part of Tycha was adjacent to the 
sea : nor could the word have been Svkiktjv, ' the portico of Syce,* 
since we know, from the narrative of Thucydides, that Syce was on 
the southern, not the northern, side of the table-land of Syracuse. 
Upon the whole, therefore, it seems evident that there was a stoa 
called the Scythian on the shore of port Trogilus, where alone, on 
this side of Syracuse, the walls touched the sea. 

2 " Inde terra, marique simul cceptse obpugnari Syracusse ; terra ab 
Hexapylo, mari ab Achradina, cujus murus fluctu adluitur." — Liv. 
24, 33. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



105 



by means of sambuca?, 1 attached to the prows of his 
ships. As such an operation could only be effected 
where the wall of Achradina stood on the margin of 
the sea, the attempt must have been made between 
Cape St. Lucia and the entrance of Lacceius; for this 
harbour was not yet in possession of the Romans, 
and in every other part of the maritime outline of 
Achradina the walls stood upon the summit of cliffs 
more or less elevated, and not admitting of such an 
attack as that of Marcellus. But Archimedes, the 
friend and relative of Hieron, 2 who had been for many 
years employed by him in fortifying Syracuse, and in 
furnishing its walls with engines of every description, 
and whose fertile genius now superintended the defence 
of the city against an enemy then little skilled in 
poliorcetics, found no difficulty in crushing the sam- 
buca by means of weights discharged from long levers, 
while, by the same instruments furnished with grap- 
ples (aiSrjpal xeipes), he had the power of lifting a 

1 The sambuca was so called from its resemblance to a musical 
instrument of that name, the body of which was represented by two 
quinqueremes joined laterally, and moved by the external oars : the 
board and strings of the musical instrument were represented by a 
long ladder, four feet wide, terminating above in a platform capable of 
containing four men : the other end of the ladder turned on hinges 
or pivots fixed on the prows of the united vessels, so that by means 
of cordage on board, it might be raised to any angle; and both ladder 
and platform being well covered, the men upon the latter might, 
when the ships were stationed at the foot of the enemy's walls, be in 
an instant placed ready for action on the summit of the ramparts. 
Polybius (8, 5) has very clearly described the sambuca. Livy (24, 
34) remarks only that the double quinqueremes bore towers and 
instruments for shaking the walls : " turres contabulatas machina- 
mentaque alia quatiendis muris portabant," 

1 'Apx^M^V 5 'lepciw ra fiaaiXel avyyevrjs (ov Kai (f)lkos. — Plutarch. 

Marcel. 14. 



106 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE, 



quinquereme by the head, and then dropping it so as 
to cause it to sink by the stern. Other machines of 
the catapeltic kind threw stones and masses of lead 
against the more distant vessels of the enemy ; while, 
on their nearer approach, an infinity of missiles was 
discharged from the loop-holed walls. 

Appius was not more successful in his simultaneous 
attack on the opposite side of Achradina, 1 between 
Hexapylum and the Scythian portico, which stood on 
the shore of the Trogilian port ; for here the walls 
were equally well supplied with catapults and balistse, 
with instruments for throwing and letting fall weights, 
and with grapples capable of seizing an armed man 
and raising him in the air. 2 The result was, that the 

1 'Qs ovv 7rpocre(3a\ov ot 'Papaioi hixpQtv, €K7tXt)^is rjp rS>v SvpaKoaloiv kcu 
aiyr) dia beos. — Plutarch. Marcell. 15. 

2 As Polybius, who was born about the time of the siege of 
Syracuse, and who describes its defence by Archimedes, makes no 
mention of the mirrors with which, in later ages, Archimedes was 
reported to have destroyed the Roman ships, we may safely infer 
that no such contrivance was employed by him, though there is good 
reason for believing that a burning mirror was among the produc- 
tions of his unrivalled genius. On comparing the words of Anthemius, 
a celebrated engineer of the sixth century, in his work irepi 7tapah6^a>v 
firjxavqfxdTcov (Dupuy, Acad, des Inscr. tome xlii. p. 392) with those 
of Tzetzes, the political versifier of the twelfth, who appears to have 
followed Anthemius without thoroughly understanding him, (Chil. 
2, 35,) we may infer that the mirror of Archimedes was a hexagon 
composed of six smaller moveable hexagons surrounding a seventh. 
Buffon constructed a set of mirrors, with which he set fire to tarred 
wood at a distance of 200 feet (Hist. Nat. Sup. i. p. 401, 4°. Paris, 
1774); but as the effect of such an operation cannot be instantaneous, 
it seems obvious that there would be little chance of success against 
an enemy who has any power of moving his ships. The earliest 
reports of the employment of mirrors by Archimedes are of the 
second century, or between three and four hundred years after the 
siege. At that time it was mentioned as a fact by Lucian (in Hippia, 2), 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



107 



Roman commanders resolved to convert the siege into 
a blockade, maintaining two camps, one to the south 
at the Olympieium, the other on the northern side. 

Marcellus, leaving Appius before Syracuse with 
two-thirds of the Roman forces, captured Helorus, 
Herbessus, and Megara, — all which had yielded to the 
Carthaginians. Epicydes defended Syracuse, while 
Hippocrates, aided by a large force of infantry, horse, 
and elephants, brought by Himilco from Carthage, took 
the field against the Romans. Marcellus, returning 
from Acragas, which he had failed in preventing the 
Carthaginians from occupying, fell in with a large 
force of the enemy employed in intrenching themselves 
at Acrilla?. He felt unequal to attack their superior 
numbers, but cut off some of the Sicilian allies, and 



by Galen (de Temper, i. p. 80, ed. Basil.), and by Dion Cassius (ap. 
Zonar. 14, 3). To these names we cannot add that of Diodorus, 
who would have greater weight than any of them, both as an earlier 
writer and as a Sicilian ; for though Tzetzes cites Diodorus on the 
subject of the siege, it is in reference to the death of Archimedes, 
not to his mirrors. Gibbon has examined this question with his 
usual judgment and sagacity. " A tradition has prevailed," he re- 
marks, " that the Roman fleet was reduced to ashes in the port of 
Syracuse by the burning-glasses of Archimedes ; and it is asserted 
that a similar expedient was employed by Proclus to destroy the 
Gothic vessels in the harbour of Constantinople, and to protect his 
benefactor Anastasius against the bold enterprise of Vitalian (a. d. 
514). A machine was fixed on the walls of the city, consisting of a 
hexagonal mirror of polished brass, with many smaller and moveable 
polygons to receive and reflect the rays of the meridian sun, and a 
consuming flame was darted to the distance perhaps of 200 feet. 
The truth of these two extraordinary facts is invalidated by the 
silence of the most authentic historians : in the siege of Syracuse, by 
the silence of Polybius, Plutarch, Livy; in the siege of Constantinople, 
by that of Marcellinus and all the contemporaries of the sixth cen- 
tury." — Gibbon, iv. p. 89, 4to ed. 



108 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



forced the cavalry to retire with Hippocrates to Acras. 
Marcellus then returned to Syracuse, and Himilco 
encamped on the Anapus, eight miles from the city. 
Fifty-five Carthaginian ships, under Bomilcar, arrived 
in the great harbour of Syracuse, and thirty Roman 
quinqueremes at Panormus, where they disembarked 
the first legion of Rome. Himilco endeavoured to 
intercept these troops on their way to Syracuse; but 
the Romans, instead of taking the direct road thither, 
crossed to the southern coast, which they followed, 
accompanied by the fleet, and were met at Pachynum 
by Appius Claudius with a part of his land forces. 

The Romans had now a superior fleet, and positions 
for their army which the Carthaginians thought im- 
pregnable, and which caused them to quit Syracuse, 
and endeavour to gain over other cities of Sicily to 
their party. Bomilcar, with the fleet, returned to 
Africa. Himilco took Morgantia, and placing Hippo- 
crates in charge of it, wintered at Acragas. The 
people of Enna, preparing to revolt from the Romans, 
were massacred by Pinarius. Marcellus established 
magazines at Leontium ; and Appius Claudius, pre- 
viously to his departure for Rome, placed T. Quinctius 
Crispinus in command of the fleet and of the camp at 
the Olympieium. Marcellus established magazines at 
Leontium, and, towards the winter, fortified a camp for 
himself at Leon. 1 

Nothing occurred in Sicily during the following year 
worthy of being recorded in history. Spain, Greece, 
and Italy were the scenes of action between Rome and 

1 "Ipse hibernacula quinque millia passuum Hexapylo (Leonta 
vocant locum) communiit sedificavitque." — Liv. 24, 39. But, ac- 
cording to Thucydides, Leon was less than eight stades from Euryalus : 
the five miles of Livy, therefore, ought perhaps to be five stades. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



109 



Carthage ; and it was not until the spring of the 
year b. c. 212 that Marcellus resolved upon active 
measures for the reduction of Syracuse, — when all 
the skill of Archimedes, unsupported by discipline, 
soon proved unequal to Roman valour and enter- 
prise. 

A negotiation had been opened between Marcellus 
and Epicydes for the redemption of Damippus, a 
Lacedaemonian, who, in proceeding from Syracuse on 
a mission to Philip V., king of Macedonia, had been 
taken by one of the Roman ships. The port of the 
Trogilii, where stood a tower named Galeagra, 1 was 
fixed upon for the place of conference. One of the 
Romans, who accompanied the persons charged with 
the negotiation on the part of Marcellus, employed 
himself in calculating the height of this tower, and 
found that the battlements could be reached by two 
ordinary scaling-ladders joined in the usual manner. 2 
This observation was reported to Marcellus, who, 

1 " Ad portum Trogiliorum propter turrim quam vocant Galeagram." 
— Liv. 25, 23. 

2 'E^pid/JLTja-aro tovs 86[xovs' rjv yap (6 irvpyos) gk o-vvvofxav XWoav 
(OKo8op,r]ij,evos, So-re Ka\ Xiau evo-vWoyurrov eivai rrjv aito yrjs ra>v oraA^eeoi/ 
dnoo-TaaLv. — Polyb. 8. Fragm. ap. Suid. in ovvpopav. Vide Schweigh. 
v. p. 32. " Unus ex Romanis, ex propinquo murum contemplatus, 
numerando lapides, aestimandoque ipse secum, quid in fronte paterent 
singuli, altitudinem muri, quantum maxime conjectura poterat, per- 
mensus humilioremque aliquanto pristina opinione sua, et ceterorum 
omnium ratus esse et vel mediocribus scalis superabilem, ad Mar- 
cellum rem defert." — Liv. 25, 23. This is an example of the 
manner in which the historian, compiling in his closet, often de- 
viates from the precision of the soldier and politician. The So/xot, 
or courses, as generally in Greek masonry after the time of Alex- 
ander, were of equal height. The Roman, therefore, had only to 
measure or compute the lower course, and to count the number of 
courses. 



110 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



having soon afterwards learnt that the Syracusans 
were engaged in celebrating the feast of Diana, which 
lasted three days, and that Epicydes had made a 
distribution of wine to the people, — the more liberally, 
as other provisions were scarce, — resolved to attempt 
an escalade in the night, 1 at an hour when the greater 
part of the guards of the ramparts would probably be 
drinking or sleeping within the towers. 2 One thousand 

1 MaOcov 8e (6 MdpKos) e£ avropoXov, 8iao-a(pr)o-avTOS, otl eoprr)v ayovaiv 
(of ILvpanovcnoi) 7ia.v8rjfj.ov /ecu rols pev aiTiois Xirols xP^> VTai $ La - T l v cnraviv, 
tco 8e olvcd bayjsiXei, Trpocravavecoo-dpevos rrjv tov Tel^ovs ra7veLv6rr]Ta, iTrefid- 

\ero KaraneipdCeLv rr)s cXttlBos. — Polyb. 8, Frag. ap. Heron, et Suid. 
Schweigh. v. p. 33. 

2 Tor^u 8e Kai KXipaKcov 8vo o~vVTedeio~a>v, iyevovTO Kvpioi tov Tvvpyov. 
Et? yap tovs rrvpyovs rjdpoicrptvoi bid rrjv Ovcriav, oi p.ev aKpr)v €tvlvov 3 oi 8 
iKoipanro ndXaL pedvo-Kopevoi. Aib Kai eXadov avrovs aTroKTelvavres. — 

Polyb. 8, Frag. ap. Heron. Schweigh. v. p. 34. " Jam milie arma- 

torum ceperant partem quum cseterse admotse pluribusque 

scalis in raurum evadebant, signo ab Hexapylo dato, quo per ingen- 
tem solitudinem erat perventum, quia magna pars in turribus epulati 
aut sopiti vino erant aut semigraves potabant ; paucos tamen ob- 
pressos in cubilibus interfecerunt. Prope Hexapylum est portula 
magna vi refringi ccepta : et e muro ex composito tuba datum sig- 
num erat." — Liv. 25, 24. It seems evident that Livy had not 
thoroughly understood Polybius, and his meaning, therefore, is 
obscure, no fragment of Polybius remaining to assist us in this part 
of his narrative. But, considering the ordinary construction of 
Hellenic walls, which consisted of towers (rrvpyoL) separated by 
curtains (pecroTrvpyia), along the summit of which was a covering of 
battlements (endXgeis) , and a continued passage along the ramparts 
through the upper stories of the towers, — considering also the inci- 
dental notice of Hexapylum in history on other occasions, there can 
be little doubt that the 'portula' mentioned by Livy led from the 
rampart into Hexapylum. From the 'tovs irvpyovs' of Polybius 
(v. sup.) we may infer that there was one tower at least between 
Galeagra and Hexapylum. At the same time, these two fortresses 
were evidently at no great distance asunder ; which perfectly agrees 
with the supposed situation of Hexapylum at the point where the 
coast road from Megara entered the Syracusan enclosure. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



Ill 



Romans scaled the wall, and followed the ramparts to 
Hexapylum, surprising the enemy, and slaying some of 
them on their couches. Arrived at Hexapylum, the 
Romans gave a signal to their friends at Galeagra, 
who now applied numerous ladders to the walls ; and 
a small gate, which led through Hexapylum to the 
ramparts beyond it, having been broken down, a 
trumpet was sounded, and the assault was no longer 
conducted in silence. The victorious Romans, having 
passed through Hexapylum, continued to follow the 
ramparts to Epipolse, the enemy retreating, and many 
of them precipitating themselves from the walls. At 
day-break Hexapylum was broken open, and Marcellus 
entered the upper city with all his forces. 1 

Epicydes, hearing of the alarm which filled the city, 
marched out of Nasus ; but when he found Epipolse 
occupied by the enemy, retired, after the discharge of 
a few missiles, into Achradina, fearful of some treachery 
which might cause the gates of Achradina and Nasus 
to be closed against him. Marcellus attempted to 
negotiate for the surrender of the city, but without 
success ; the ramparts of Achradina being in the hands 
of deserters from the Syracusan party which had sided 
with the Romans, and who could not expect pardon. 
He turned therefore towards Euryalus, a post important 



1 The following is the narrative of Plutarch, in which he seems 
principally to have followed Polybius. Ilvpyov riva Kareo-KfyaTo, 
(pvkarropevov pev ovk dpe\a>s, avdpas Se dvvdpevov 8e£acrdai Kpvcpa, tov 
T€i%ovs enifiarov nap" avrov ovros. '{2? ovv to re vyjsos eK tov noWaKis 
npoaievat Kai SiaXeyeaOai npos tov nvpyov elKaadt] KaXcos Kai KXipaKes 
napeo~Kevdo-6r}o~av , ioprrj rrj 'Aprepidi tovs SvpaKovaiovs dyovras Kai np6a 
olvov apprjpevovs Ka). nai^iav, 7rapa(f)vKd^as, TkaOev ov povov rov nvpyov 
Karao-x&v, dXkd Kai kvkKco to ret^os napepnKrjaas 6n\u>v nplv ijpepav 
yeve'crdai, Kai ra 'EgdnvXa btaKo^as. — Plutarch. Marcel. 18. 



112 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



to the security of his rear. Here the commander 
Philodemus, an Argive, attempted to gain time, in 
expectation of the arrival of Hippocrates and Himilco ; 
but, despairing at length of succour, he delivered up 
Euryalus to the Romans, on the condition of retiring 
into the part of the city occupied by Epicydes. In 
the mean time Marcellus had encamped between 
Neapolis and Tycha, both which places submitted to 
be plundered, on condition of being saved from 
slaughter and fire. 

During these tumults, Bomilcar, taking advantage 
of the confusion in the city, when it happened also 
that a tempestuous night prevented the Roman ships 
from blockading the harbour, 1 sailed out with thirty- 
five ships, leaving fifty-five at Syracuse, and speedily 
returned from Carthage with 100 ships; a large portion 
of the treasures of Hieron having, it was supposed, been 
expended by Epicydes on this occasion. Marcellus, 
secured by Euryalus in his rear, now hoped to reduce 
those enclosed in Achradina by famine, and established 
three camps for this purpose. The arrival of Hippo- 
crates and Himilco, however, placed him in some 
peril. An attack was made by Hippocrates upon the 
old camp at the Olympieium under Crispinus, while 
Epicydes sallied upon the stations of Marcellus ; and 
the Punic fleet, approaching the shore at the head of 
the great harbour, intercepted the communication 
between Marcellus and Crispinus. But these mea- 
sures were unsuccessful ; and the Romans derived 
from them the confidence of being able to preserve 
their positions. 

1 " Aversis omnibus ad tumultum ex parte captse urbis, Bomilcar, 
noctem earn nactus, qua propter vim tempestatis stare ad anchoram 
in salo Romana classis non posset," &c. — Liv. 25, 25. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



113 



The autumn had now arrived, and the wonted un- 
healthiness of the situation was felt, particularly in the 
two adverse camps to the southward of the city. But 
the Carthaginians suffered more than the Romans, who 
had the means, when the pestilence increased, of with- 
drawing within the walls of that portion of Syracuse 
which was in their possession; though this was not done 
before they had suffered considerable loss. Of the Car- 
thaginians, almost all perished, including Hippocrates 
and Himilco. The Siculi who had been encamped with 
them had retired, as soon as the pestilence declared 
itself, into two fortresses; one of which was three, the 
other fifteen, miles distant from Syracuse. Here they 
collected supplies and reinforcements from their se- 
veral cities, while Bomilcar proceeded to Carthage, 
and speedily returned from thence with 130 ships and 
700 transports. Leaving the latter at Heracleia, he 
advanced with the ships of war to Pachynum. There 
the north-westerly wind, which had brought him from 
Carthage, having been adverse to his further progress 
towards Syracuse, he was joined by Epicydes, who, 
with a salutary distrust of his allies, feared that the 
adverse wind might furnish Bomilcar with a motive or 
plea for returning to Africa : leaving Achradina, there- 
fore, to the care of the mercenaries, Epicydes proceeded 
to Pachynum by sea, where he found the Punic fleet 
on the southern side of the cape. Marcellus, on his 
part, was not less apprehensive of being shut up in a 
hostile city by this new Punic armament, aided by the 
Siculi, who were collecting in great numbers. He 
resolved therefore to prevent, if possible, the Punic 
ships from entering the bay of Syracuse ; and, although 
inferior in force, sailed for this purpose to Pachynum. 
The two fleets remained on the opposite sides of the 

p 



114 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



promontory, until an east wind, which had been blow- 
ing violently for some days, subsided. Bomilcar then 
stood out to sea, as if for the purpose of doubling the 
cape ; but suddenly, when the Roman ships were 
bearing down upon him, sent orders to the transports 
at Heracleia to return to Africa, and shaped his own 
course for Tarentum : and Epicydes, seeing Syracuse 
thus abandoned, instead of returning thither, pro- 
ceeded to Agrigentum. On hearing of these deser- 
tions, the Siculi, with the concurrence of the besieged 
Syracusans, proposed to Marcellus that Syracuse should 
be surrendered to the Romans, together with every 
other place which had been in subjection to Hieron, 1 
and that the Siculi should remain in the enjoyment of 
their laws and liberties. In a Syracusan assembly, the 
Siculi engaged to insist upon the same conditions of 
personal safety for those who were besieged by the 
Romans as for themselves. This caused a revolution, 
which was fatal to the three officers left in command 
by Epicydes. New chiefs were appointed, and an em- 
bassy was about to be sent to Marcellus, who was ready 
to ratify the terms proposed by the Siculi, when a fresh 
insurrection of the mercenaries and deserters prevented 
the termination of the treaty. They put to death the 
newly appointed magistrates, and appointed six in 
their place, — three to command in Achradina, and 
three in Nasus. The mercenaries, however, soon dis- 
covered that their case was not the same as that of the 
deserters, and that Marcellus had no intention of 
treating them severely. It happened also that one of 
the officers of the mercenaries intrusted with the 

1 " Quae ubique regum fuissent, Romanorum essent." — Liv. 25, 
28. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



115 



custody of Achradina was a Spaniard, named Mericus, 
and that Marcellus had some Spanish auxiliaries among 
his forces. By means of one of these, who accompa- 
nied the deputies of Marcellus into Achradina, Mericus 
was gained over to the Roman cause ; and, having 
contrived to nominate his brother as one of the Syra- 
cusan deputies to Marcellus, entered into an agreement 
to give up one of the gates of the city to the Romans. 
Under a pretence of greater security, Mericus caused 
a partition to be made of the custody of the walls 
among the six commanders, obtained for himself the 
portion of Nasus between the fountain Arethusa and 
the entrance of the great harbour, and communi- 
cated the fact to Marcellus. A party of Romans 
embarked in a ship of burden, which was towed by 
the barge of a quadrireme to the western side of 
Nasus, was landed near the gate of Arethusa, 1 and was 
placed in possession of that gate by Mericus. This 
was effected in the fourth watch : at day-light, Mar- 
cellus, with the main body of his forces, attacked the 
walls of Achradina, when a great part of the garrison 
of Nasus proceeding to its defence, a body of Romans, 
reserved for the purpose, was sent by sea to Nasus, 
landed near the fountain, and having entered the gate 
already in possession of the Romans, without difficulty 
became masters of Nasus. Nearly at the same time, a 
part of Achradina was also taken, 2 and Mericus with 
his portion of the garrison joined the Romans, when 

1 " Itaque Marcellus nocte navem onerariam cum armatis remulco 
quadriremis trahi ad Achradinam jussit, exponique milites regione 
portse quae prope fontem Arethusam est." — Liv. 25, 30. Achradinam 
seems to be an error for Nasum. 

2 Perhaps the lower Achradina, which lay between Nasus and the 
fortress of Achradina. 



116 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



Marcellus sounded a cessation of the attack, and left 
free egress to the enemy from Achradina, — being 
principally anxious that the remainder of the royal 
treasure in Nasus should not be plundered before the 
quaestor could arrive there. But this treasure was 
much smaller than had been expected ; a large portion 
of it having, as we have seen, been sent to Carthage, 
where the effects which it produced were such as 
usually result from a subsidized alliance. 

When these matters had been attended to, and 
guards placed to protect the houses of the Syracusans 
who had been of the Roman party, the rest of the 
city was given up to plunder. In the confusion, 
Archimedes was slain by an ignorant soldier, greatly 
to the regret of Marcellus. 



Among the extant monuments of Syracusan opu- 
lence and refinement, none are more deserving of 
notice than the coins. The great number and variety 
of them are very significant indications of that wealth 
which afforded the Romans almost as much plunder at 
Syracuse as at Carthage itself ;* while they furnish 
splendid proofs of that perfection in the elegant arts, 
in which scarcely any Greek city but Athens could 
enter into competition with Syracuse. The imperfect 
remarks upon them which follow I have reserved for 
this part of my ' Notes on Syracuse,' because no ex- 
planation of the coins of a Greek state can be well 
founded but in a review of its history ; and those of 



1 Liv. 25, 31. Plutarch. Marcell. 19. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



117 



Syracuse are the more interesting, as there is no 
Greek state, except Athens, of which so much of 
the history is known as Syracuse. Some of its 
coins obtained celebrity among the ancients. 1 The 
Damaretia, (i) the Pentecontalitra, (ii) and the Philis- 
tidia, (iU) were not less renowned than the golden 
Philippeia of Macedonia, (iv) or the Berenicia of Egypt ; (v) 
and Syracusan coins in general are valuable not only 
as exquisite specimens of Greek art, but as contri- 
buting to the history of art by the means which we 
possess of approximating to a correct knowledge of 
the time when many of them were struck. 

Of these the Aa^aperiov or Arj/iaperetov is at once 
among the most ancient, and that of which the date 
is the most correctly known, these pieces having 
been coined by Gelon, who died in 478 b. c, from 
the proceeds of 100 talents of gold presented to his 
wife Damareta by the Carthaginians, on the occa- 
sion of the peace which they concluded with Gelon 
after his victory at Himera in 480 b. c. 2 In exact 

1 Diodor. 11, 26 ; 16, 8. Sch. Pindar. 01. 2, v. 1. 29. Eustath. 
in Homer. Odys. H. 63. J. Poll. Onomast. 4, 173; 9, 81, seq. 
Hesych. in Aapapenov, <&l\i<tt18iov. 

Mus. Hunter, tab. 52, x.— (") Ibid, ix.— ( iU ) Mionnet, Planches, 
lxviii. 8. — ( iv ) Duane's Kings of Macedonia, pi. 2. — ( v ) Mionnet, 
Sup. ix. pi. in. 4. 

These Roman numbers refer also to plates of the coins stamped 
on paper in rilievo, by the process of G. Barclay, 22, Gerard Street, 
Soho, of whom they may be purchased. 

2 napayevopevcov yap Tvpbs avrbv ix. rrjs KapxqSovos ratv a.7recrTaXp.€va>v 
irpeafiecov Kai /xerct daicpvcov beofiepeov av6p<xnviva)s avrois xPV cra(T ^ ai > 
(rvv€-)(aipr)(Te tt]v elprjvrjv. iirpd^aTO Se nap' avr&v ras els top Trokepov 
yeyevrjpevas hairavas apyvpiov Sto-^tXta raXavra Kai dvo vaovs Trpoaeragav 
olnoftoprjcraL K.a.6' ovs edei ras avvdrjuas avare6r\vaC ol be Kapxv^ovioi rrjs 
(rwrqplas Tvapabo^oos Terevxores, ravra re $a>creii> npocrede^avro Kai crrecpavou 
Xpvcrovv rfj yvvaiKi rod VeXavos Aapaperr) npocrcopoXoyqa-av. avrrj yap V7r' 
avrcov a £ tw del a a avvrjpyrjae TrXela-Tov els rfju crvvdeo-iv rrjs elpi)vr]s Kai 



118 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



conformity with this date of the coin, we find that the 
letters of the word ^YRAKO^ION inscribed upon it 
are similar in form to those of the ^VRAKO^IOI upon 
the brazen helmet in the British Museum, which was 
dedicated to Jupiter of Olympia, after the victory 
gained by Hieron, the successor of Gelon, over the 
Tyrrhenians at Cumae, in the year 474 b. c. And 
hence we may infer that some didrachma and tetra- 
drachma of Syracuse, on w 7 hich the K is expressed by 
9 and the sigma by ^, are of an earlier date. (Y1) It has 
been supposed by some numismatic writers, and by 
none more decidedly than the greatest of them, Eckhel, 
that the Damaretia were coins of gold, because the 
present made to Damareta is described as a crown of 



areipavooOeio-a vrc avr<ov iicarov rakavrois -^pvo-ov, *>o/zio-/m i^enotye rb 
KkrjBev art eKelvrjs Aafiaperiov' tovto 8' ci^eu 'Arnicas dpaxpds Se'fca* eKKrjBrj 
Se irapa rois SiKeXioorais dnb rod o-raBjxov HevrrjKovraXtrpov. — Diodor. 11, 

26. The 2000 talents of silver paid to Gelon for the expenses of 
the war were equal to about 140,000 pounds of silver, or about half a 
million of our present currency. The old Sicilian talent of gold, 
according to Aristotle, as cited by Julius Pollux (9, 87), weighed six 
Attic drachmae. But this could not have been the talent intended by 
Diodorus, as the present made to Damareta would have been worth 
no more than one Attic talent of silver, and capable of producing no 
more than 600 pentecontalitra. Nothing, however, is more uncer- 
tain than the weight or value of the talent of gold in different times 
and places. " There can be no question," says Boeckh, in his Public 
CEconomy of Athens, i. p. 210, " that as much gold as was equal to 
the value of a silver talent, was often called a talent of gold ; as also 
that a quantity of gold weighing 6000 drachmae was known by the 
same name." If we suppose the Sicilian talent of gold of the time 
of Gelon to have weighed 24 Attic drachmae (v. sup. note 2, p. 44), 
and the proportional value of gold and silver to have been as 13 to 1 
(Herodot. 3, 95), the present to Damareta was capable of producing 
3120 pentecontalitra. 

( vi ) Mus. Hunter, tab. 53, xn. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



119 



gold ; but the word are^avday, employed by Diodorus, 
was often used to signify a present of money or bullion, 
without any reference to a crown ; and in this parti- 
cular case the circumstances alone leave little doubt 
that the gift to Damareta was of un wrought gold. 
And this gold was coined, not into money of gold, 
but into its equivalent of silver, as manifestly fol- 
lows from the words of Diodorus, from whom we 
learn that the Damaretia were also called Pente- 
contalitra, as weighing fifty litrae, and that they 
contained ten Attic drachmae, which is exactly the 
weight of all the extant silver coins commonly 
called Syracusan medallions, — both the archaic 
decadrachma, or Damaretia, and those better known, 
which are of later date. Diodorus could not have 
intended to describe a coin of gold weighing 10 Attic 
drachmae, as it would, according to the value of gold 
compared with silver about that time, 1 have been 
equivalent to 130 drachmae or 650 litrae. The largest 
gold coin of Syracuse known weighs no more than 
8 litrae. (vii) Indeed, it would be almost absurd to sup- 
pose that, at a time when Syracuse was far from 
wealthy, such a wise prince as Gelon should have 
struck a money so little suited to commerce and 
public convenience as a gold piece weighing 10 
drachmae, or 675 grains troy ; which would have 
been heavier than any gold coin, ancient or modern. 2 
But, in fact, the Syracusans, in the time of Gelon, 
had not yet begun to coin in gold, nor had any of the 

1 Herodot. 3, 95. Letronne, ' Eval. des Monnaies Grecques et 
Romanies,' pp. 64, 106. Paris, 1817. 

( vii ) Mus. Hunter, p. 288, tab. 52, iv. 

2 The gold coins of Arsinoe and of Ptolemy V. weigh 429 grains; 
the five-pound piece of England, 647 grains. 



120 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



Greeks, except perhaps those of some of the maritime 
cities of Asia, as Cyzicus, Phocsea, and Miletus, who 
had probably derived the art as well as the material 
from the Lydians. 1 Of the smaller silver coins of 
the Syracusans, the litra is the most common ; (viii) its 
weight is one-fifth of the Attic drachma, and it 
bears, therefore, to the Attic obolus the proportion 
of 6 to 5. It was the unit of the Syracusan series 
in silver, and its multiples were numerous. There 
are extant pieces of Ij litra, of 2^, of 3, of 4, of 5, 
of 8, of 10, of 12, of 16, of 20, and of 50 litrse. 2 As a 
pentalitron was equal to an Attic drachma, a decalitron 
to a didrachmon, and a piece of 20 litrse to a tetra- 
drachmon, there is reason to believe that the monetary 
scale of Syracuse was made to accord throughout with 
the Athenian ; and this is strongly confirmed by the 
existence of a piece of litrse, equal to an Attic 
hemidrachmon, and of another of lj, equal to the 
fourth of an Attic drachma, which is impressed with 
the figure of an owl, (ix) the usual symbol of the 
Athenian Minerva. It is more than probable that 
this agreement of the two scales was derived from 
Corinth, that it existed prior to the Corinthian colo- 
nization of Syracuse, and that, from an earlier time, 
the litra was the unit of the silver money of Corinth, 
while the drachma or obolus was the unit of the 
Athenian. That the litra was of Corinthian origin 
seems evident from the Corinthian didrachmon having 
been described as the stater of ten litrse (SeKoXtrpos 
ararrip). 3 The Syracusan decalitra and the Corinthian 

1 Herodot. 1, 93. ( viii ) Mus. Hunter, tab. 54, in. 

2 Mus. Hunter, p. 288, seq. 

( ix ) Castelli (Torremuzza) Sicil. Num. Vet. PI. lxxviii. 15. 

3 J. Poll. 4, 175; 9, 81. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



121 



staters were not only identical in weight, but many 
of the Syracusan bore the same types as those of 
Corinth, both on the obverse and reverse. (x ' xi) It 
would seem that each of these three greatest of com- 
mercial cities continued to adapt the weight of its 
silver money to the general convenience and common 
circulation of them all ; and hence perhaps it hap- 
pens that while the Corinthian stater is the commonest 
of all silver coins, the didrachmon of Athens and the 
decalitron of Syracuse are rare ; and that, on the other 
hand, there are no extant tetradrachma of Corinth, 
while those of Athens and Syracuse are very abundant. 

It has often been doubted whether such fine works 
as some of the Syracusan coins could have been em- 
ployed as money, and especially those of the largest 
size ; but the exact equality of weight in pieces of the 
same denomination, and the agreement of them all 
with the general monetary scale of Syracuse, leave no 
reasonable doubt on this question. That such beau- 
tiful coins should frequently have been hoarded is 
natural ; and hence the considerable number of them 
still extant in good preservation. The Damaretia, 
indeed, are extremely rare, which is not surprising 
when we consider their great antiquity, and the cir- 
cumstance of their having been the produce of a single 
limited issue ; but of the later pentecontalitra, com- 
monly called Syracusan medallions, there are still 
extant a considerable number. I know of not less 
than fifteen or twenty, all designed by the same artist, 
Eveenetus (EYAINETOX), (xii) and known either by the 
traces, more or less apparent, of his name on the lower 

( x > xi ) Taylor Combe, Num. Mus. Brit. p. 78, No. 24, p. 136, 
Corinth. No. 2, seq. 

( xii ) Torremuzza, auct. i. tab. vn. 1. 

Q 



122 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



edge of the coin, or by an exact similarity of design* to 
those so distinguishable. The chariots and the Victory 
on the pentecontalitra, tetradrachma, and some of the 
smaller coins, seem to indicate that it was customary 
at Syracuse to issue the newly coined money on the 
occasion of games celebrated in honour of the deities 
whose heads form the obverses of the coins. Some- 
times Victory crowns the horses, but more frequently 
the charioteer. That armour formed a part of the 
prize on these occasions is evident from the repre- 
sentation of it on the exergue of the pentecontalitra, 
generally with the word A0AA attached to it. (xUi) 
Perhaps the newly struck coins were among the 
rewards of the successful charioteer. On a piece 
of 20 litrse, the Victory bears in her hand a tablet 
inscribed EYAINETO (i. e. Evaivirov epyov), showing 
the die to have been the work of the same Eveenetus 
who made the medallions. On the obverse of the 
same coin his name is again indicated by the letters 
EYAI on one of the dolphins, surrounding a female 
head, which was intended probably for Arethusa, as 
a band on the forehead is adorned with a border of 
waves, above which may be discerned a minute dol- 
phin. ^ It is not impossible that the tablet on the 
reverse of this coin may be intended to represent a 
purse containing some of the new coins. 

So refined was the taste of the Syracusans as to 
their money, that we find the artist's name on a piece 
so small as a pentalitron or drachma, and one which 
had no reference to games, but was impressed with a 
representation in honour of Leucaspis, (xv) a fabled com- 

( xiii ) Torremuzza, tab. lxxii. 1. 

( xiv ) In the British Museum. Vide Mus. Hunter, tab. 53. m. 

( xv ) Mus. Hunter, tab. 53, xxi. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



123 



panion of Hercules, and one of the heroes worshipped 
at Syracuse. Examples of this coin are extant, de- 
signed by Eumenus, 1 whose name frequently occurs 
on Syracusan silver. The only artist besides Evsenetus 
whose name is seen on the pentecontalitra is Cimon 
(KIMniM). (xvi) His style is more florid than that of 
Evaenetus, and he seems, therefore, to have been of 
later date, although both probably wrought under 
Dionysius I. Gold coins of Syracuse are extant both 
by Evsenetus and by Cimon. 2 

The age of Evsenetus is shown to have been after 
the year 403 b. c, by the occurrence on all his coins 
of n in the word ZYPAKOZIftN . But he lived not long 
after that time, as we find EYAINETO for EYAINETOY 
on his tetradrachmon above mentioned, which custom 
appears to have been obsolete when Philip II. of Mace- 
donia began to strike his famous gold coins, about 357 
b. c, for on these the name is constantly <|>IAinnOY. 
MAYS XIMAO is the legend on the coins of Mausolus, 
who began to reign in 377 b. c; but MAYZEHAAOY 
occurs in some Carian inscriptions of his reign, dating 
from 367 to 355 b. c. 3 In so literary a city as Syra- 
cuse, we can hardly imagine that the employment 
of OY and the long vowels became customary later 
than at Athens. Eumenus appears to have lived 
about the same time as Evsenetus, as we find his 
name written both EYMENOV and EYMHNOY ; 4 
and on a coin of Leucaspis, in my possession, the 
name of the people is 2vpcucoatON , not jQN. On this 

1 Mus. Hunter, tab. 53, xx. 
( xvi ) Torremuzza, tab. lxxii. 1. 

2 In the National Collection at Paris. 

3 Boeckh, C. Inscript. Gr. No. 2691. 

4 This name is not to be confounded with EYMENH2, the etymon of 
which is /xeW, ardor animi : that of Eumenus is ^v, Lunus, mensis. 



124 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



piece EY occurs on both sides, standing undoubtedly 
for EYMHNOY, as this word occurs on other coins of 
Leucaspis at full length, and the style of them all is 
the same. 1 In a pentecontalitron, by Cimon, his name is 
placed on one of the dolphins which surround the head 
of Proserpine. (xvi) On a tetradrachmon, by the same 
engraver, KIMI2N may be discerned on a fillet amidst 
the hair of a front face of Arethusa, above which is 
APE0OSA. (xvii) Cimon is the only Syracusan artist whose 
name occurs in the nominative : hrom is to be under- 
stood. On another tetradrachmon we find EYKAEIAA 
on the helmet of a front-faced Pallas, (xviii) and the same 
name on another tetradrachmon upon the lower part of 
a bag or band which supports the hair at the back of 
the head of Proserpine. (xix) The name of the artist is 
engraved, in both instances, in letters so minute that 
they are scarcely visible without the aid of a lens. Bu- 
rn enus was seldom so modest; his name occurs in much 
larger characters on a tetradrachmon inscribed on a 
fillet in the hair of a profile of Proserpine : 2 on another 
tetradrachmon the name occupies the whole exergue, 
ancl is found at full length on both sides of the coin. 3 
Examples occur of a coin executed by two different 
artists : the obverse of a tetradrachmon was made by 
Eucleidas, (his name being in very small characters on a 
tablet,) and the reverse by Eumenus. 4 Of another 

1 Mus. Hunter, tab. 53, xx. Torremuzza, tab. lxxviii. 11, 12. 
(xvii) Mionnet, Planches, lxvii. 4. ( xviii ) In the British Museum. 

V. Torremuzza, tab. lxxiv. 8 ; but the artist's name is not seen. 

( xix ) In my own collection and in the British Museum. See Hunter, 
tab. 53, iv.; but where also no artist's name is apparent. On these coins 
by Eucleidas the legend is 2YPAK02I02. As in the ArAOOKAEIOS of 
some of the coins of Agathocles, vovp[xos or a-rarrip is to be understood. 

2 Torremuzza, tab. lxxii. 7. 3 Ibid. 6. 
4 Mus. Hunt. tab. 52, xvn. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



125 



tetradrachmon the obverse was by EYM(HIMOZ); the 
reverse, or at least its exergue, which is a beautiful repre- 
sentation of Scylla catching a fish, by EY0(YMOX?) (XX) 
It was a natural consequence of this custom of oc- 
casionally employing a different artist for either side 
of a coin, that when the same artist executed both 
sides, he should sometimes place his name on both 
sides. Instances have already been mentioned in the 
cases of Evsenetus and Eumenus. nAPME(NI2N 
or NIZKOZ) was also an engraver of monetary 
dies, as appears from extant coins. 1 That all these 
are names of artists, and not of magistrates, as some 
persons are disposed to believe, can scarcely be 
doubted on taking a general view of the coins of 
Syracuse. In many of the democracies of Greece 
it was undoubtedly permitted or required that cer- 
tain magistrates should inscribe their names on the 
money of the state ; and of this custom Athens fur- 
nishes a remarkable instance : but there was a much 
larger number of republics in which it was not prac- 
tised, and was probably contrary to law ; and of these, 
Syracuse was manifestly one. Whenever the legend 
on its money related to any thing but the name of the 
people, it was connected with the local religion : this 
rule was transgressed only by the dynasts ; and here 
the exception proves the rule, as it was by means of 
their illegal despotic power that they assumed the 
privilege ; nor was it exercised until the time of Aga- 
thocles, after and during whose reign single letters, or 
two letters together, begin to appear on the coins of 
Syracuse, which may possibly be intended to designate 
the names of magistrates. But in the earlier Syracusan 



( xx ) Mus. Hunter, tab. 53, v. 1 Mus. Hunter, tab. 52, xvi. 



126 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



coins, easily distinguishable by their superior style of 
art, the names seem always to have been those of 
artists ; and we find accordingly that they are generally 
engraved and placed upon the coins in small letters, 
and in situations the least obtrusive, in the manner of 
monetary engravers of modern times. 

The litra of silver represented a pound, or 12 ounces 
(ovy/clat) of copper. The hemilitron was equal to six 
ounces, the trixas to three ounces, and the dixas to two. 1 
The irevToyfciov, or silver piece of the value of 5 ounces, 
was a common fee of the Syracusan fortune-tellers. 2 
The litra, which bears generally on the obverse a female 
head, and on the reverse a sepia, is much more often 
found than its subdivisions. In the Hunter Collection 
there is a hemilitron marked with six dots, to signify 
ounces, 3 and in Torremuzza there is a Syracusan 
silver coin with four dots : 4 whence it appears that 

1 Kai firju iv , AKpayavrlvcov irokirelq (prjalv ' ApurroTeXrjs, ^qpiovaBai riva 
rpicLKovra \lrpas' SvvaaOai 8e rf]v Xlrpav 6[3o\6v Alyivatov' aXka pevroi trap 
avTu> tis av iv 777 'ipepaicov 7roAireia Kai aXka evpoi ^ikcXikcov vopicrpdrtov 
ovopara, oiov ovyKiav, oirep dvvarai xaXfcow iva' Kai hif-dvra oVep eVrt 8vo 
XaXjcot' Kai Tpii-dvra onep rpets' Kai rjptXirpov onep e£* Kai Xirpav rjv eivat 
6(3oX6v' to /xeVroi SeKaXirpov bvvacrBai pev deKa dfioXovs, eivai 8e crraTrjpa 
KoplvOiov. — J. Poll. 9, 80. Cf. Hesych. in Stfos. 

The extant monuments demonstrate that Aristotle was not quite 
correct as to the weight of the litra ; it was indeed heavier than the 
Athenian obolus, but it was lighter than the iEginsean : the full 
weight of the iEginsean obolus was 16 grains, of the Syracusan litra, 
13'5, and of the Athenian obolus, 11*25. 

2 "Qo~7rep ai irovqpal pdvrus, aid* vnovepovrai 
TvvalKas papas' at fiev ap. nevroyKiov dpyvpov, 
"AXXaL 8e Xirpav' ai 5' av rjpiXirpov deftdpevoi, 
TldvTa yiyv&aKovTi rore X6y(0. 

Epicharmus iv 'Apnayais, ap. J. Poll. 9, 81. 

3 Mus. Hunter. 54, v. 

4 Torremuzza, lxxix. 29. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



127 



there were pieces of 4, as well as of 2, of 3, of 5, and 
of 6 ounces. The pentoncium, 1 the trixas, 2 and the 
dixas, of Syracuse, distinguished by the number of dots 
on them, are, I believe, still unpublished. 3 

Syracusan ovyfclai are not uncommon ; they bear a 
great resemblance, by their form and thickness, to some 
of the early copper money of Italy : they are impressed 
on one side with the head of Minerva, similar to that 
on the coins of Corinth; and on the other, with two 
dolphins, between which is a star. Their average 
weight, when new, appears to have been about 500 
grains ; it bore therefore to the Roman ounce, which 
was the tw T elfth part of the as or libra, the proportion 
of 25 to 21. 4 By the style of the figures impressed 
upon them, and the form of the letters, they do not 
appear to be more ancient than Dionysius I. 

Although in copper we cannot expect to find so 
much accuracy of weight as generally prevails in the 
silver coinage of the Greeks, it is still remarkable 
in the copper money of Syracuse, even in the sub- 
divisions of the ounce. In particular, the rj/Moy/cia, or 
half- ounces, impressed with the head of Jupiter 
Eleutherius, are generally found to weigh very nearly 
250 grains. The worship of Jupiter Eleutherius was 
established at the time of the restored democracy, 

1 I possess a pentoncium of Acragas. Obv. Eagle on a column 
AKPA. Rev. 5 dots in quincunx ; weight 5 grains. 

2 The trixas is the teruncius of the Roman scale of Varro, de Ling. 
Latin. 4. 

3 The digas ought to weigh 2' 2 grains. Coins of Taras and 
Egesta, marked with two dots, are extant of this weight, or less. 
The smallest Athenian coin extant is the rerapTripopiov or Taprr]p,6piov, 
or quarter- obolus, equivalent to two chalci ; its weight is 2f grains. 

4 Eckhel, Doct. Num. Vet. vol. v. p. 6. Letronne, ' Eval. des 
Monnaies,' p. 7. 



128 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



after the exile of Thrasybulus in 466 b. c, when the 
Syracusans erected a colossal statue of Jupiter Eleu- 
therius, and instituted sacrifices and games in his 
honour. 1 But none of these coins have the appear- 
ance of being older than Dionysius I. Two hundred 
years later, the ounce and half-ounce still preserved 
their weight; and they were even heavier than those 
of the earlier time. The ounce of HieronlL, which is 
impressed on the obverse with a diademated beardless 
head, and on the other side with a biga, and the 
legend IEPf2NOZ, (xxix) is rare ; but there is no coin in 
the Syracusan series more common than the half- 
ounce, which has the same obverse and the same 
legend, but with a horseman in place of the biga. 

At Rome and in other cities, both of Italy and 
Sicily, the original weight of the copper money was 
gradually reduced, until the coins became no more 
than tokens, the current value of which was marked 
by dots, expressing the number of ounces. But I 
have never seen any of these dots on Syracusan coins 
of copper, even those of so late a time as Hieron II. ; 
and if they ever occur, the coins will probably be 
found to belong to a later period. 

From a comparison of the coins of Syracuse in 
silver and in copper, it appears that the value of the 
two metals was in the ratio of 1 to 445, — a proportion 
which seems enormous compared with that of modern 
times, or of the Byzantine empire. But at Rome, in 
the time of Hieron II., it was as great, if not greater. 2 

1 Diodor. 11, 72. 

( xxix ) Torremuzza, tab. xcix. 1. 

2 Much greater, if the denarius of silver, first coined in the year 
b. c. 269, or a few years after the accession of Hieron II. to power, 
and which was made equivalent to ten pounds of copper (dena seris), 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



129 



The constitution of Syracuse was always democratic, 
although, for the two first centuries, the executive was 
in the hands of a landed aristocracy, and was often, in 
subsequent ages, for many consecutive years under the 
sway of military commanders, during whose usurped 
power many of the republican laws and institutions 
must have been suspended or perverted. But demo- 
cratic customs were constantly revived on the cessa- 
tion of the tyrannies, and republican forms were never 
obsolete. In a constitutional jealousy of public men, 
the Syracusans seem, in one respect, to have exceeded 
the Athenians, — their coins, as already hinted, being 
free from official names, and in this respect affording 
an agreeable contrast to the coins of Athens. If some 
initial letters, chiefly on the coins of Hieron II. and 
Hieronymus, have reference to magistrates, they prove 
the restricted nature of the privilege; for the letters 
never exceed two, and are more commonly single 
letters. Even Agathocles, who, in imitation of the 
successors of Alexander, assumed the regal title in 
the year 307 b. c, never placed his portrait on 
the coins of his reign, although we have his coins 
in gold (xxi) and copper, (xxii) inscribed ArAGOKAEOX 
BA2IAEOZ. The tetradrachma of silver, having a 
head of Proserpine (KOPAZ) on one side, and Victory 



was not heavier than the Attic drachma. But although it became as 
light, and even lighter than the Attic drachma, namely 60 grains, 
there is sufficient evidence that a much heavier denarius was long in 
use at Rome. (Varro, ubi sup.) It seems, indeed, not very likely that 
there should have been any great difference in the comparative value of 
silver and copper between Rome and Syracuse in the reign of Hieron II. 
It would have been nearly equal in the two places, supposing the 
weight of the denarius to have been about 112 grains. 

( xxi ) Torremuzza, tab. ci. 1, 2. ( xxii ) Ibid. 15. 

R 



130 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



erecting a trophy on the other, with the legend 
AFABOKAEOS or ArA0OKAEIO2:, (xxiii) were coined 
probably in the interval of ten years between his ac- 
cession and his assumption of the regal title. Icetas, 
the successor of Agathocles, though he never styled 
himself king, transgressed the democratic customs 
of Syracuse so far as to place his name at full length, 
preceded by En I, upon the gold money which he 
issued. (xxiv) Pyrrhus was the next of the dynasts of 
Syracuse who coined money in the city with his name 
upon it. There are coins of Pyrrhus in gold, silver, 
and copper, which, though inscribed BAZIAEQZ (and 
not BASIAEOZ in the Syracusan dialect) HYPPOY, 
were certainly struck at Syracuse. On comparing the 
obverses of the coins of Agathocles and Icetas repre- 
senting the head of Cora, with those of Pyrrhus having 
a similar obverse, (xxv ' DVi) the identity of style is very 
striking. A similar comparison will leave little doubt 
that a celebrated tetradrachmon of Pyrrhus which 
bears the oak-crowned head of the Dodonsean Jupiter 
on the obverse, and on the reverse Juno seated on a 
throne, (xxvii) was issued from the Syracusan mint. The 
difference between this coin and one of those just 
referred to, is, that on the latter we find the venerated 
goddesses of Syracuse, Cora and Ceres ; on the other, 
the Epirote deities, Zeus and Dione. 1 The close 
resemblance of the enthroned goddesses, on the two 

(xxiii) Torremuzza, tab. ci. 6, 9. 

(xxiv) Torremuzza, tab. en. 1, 2, 3. 

^xxv, xxvi) j n m y own collection. See D'Orville, Sicula, tab. xvi. 

XVII. 

( xxvii ) See the title-page of Taylor Combe's ' Nummi in Museo 
Britannico.' 

1 The Epirote name of Juno. Strabo, p. 329. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



131 



reverses, is remarkable. It is equally evident that 
some others of the coins of Pyrrhus were struck at 
Syracuse : for instance, a small gold coin, with his name 
on the reverse, the obverse being a head of Diana, 
which, with its symbols, is closely imitated from the 
obverse of a gold coin of Syracuse. 1 This fine piece 
— the largest of the Syracusan series in gold — has on 
the other side a head of Apollo. 2 Hieron II., though 
he assumed the titles of 'Hje^cov and BaaiXevs, 3 and 
was styled Rex Hiero by the Romans, and though two 
of the females of his family, Nereis and Philistis, were 
entitled BaalXuraai, 41 appears never to have employed 
any but the ordinary sacred or republican types on his 
coinage in silver, — with one exception, of which not 
more than two or three specimens are extant. This 
silver coin is equal in diameter to the pentecontalitron, 
but weighs not more than about 33 litrse, or 6^ Attic 
drachixise. (xxviii) It bears a close resemblance to the 
ounce and the half-ounce of Hieron II., particularly 
the former, (xxix) the difference being that on the re- 
verse of the silver coin, Victory drives a car of four 
horses instead of two, and that above the car are a 
star and BASIAEOZ. With this exception, all the 
coins of Hieron II. bearing his name, both in gold and 
copper, have the legend IEPI2NOE only. As the title 
of Bao-Ckevs, therefore, never occurs on the coins of 
Hieron, except in the extremely rare silver pieces just 

1 Neuman's Num. Pop. et Reg. part i. tab. 6, fig. 3. 

2 Mus. Hunter, tab. 52, iv. Vide vn. 

3 BaaiXzos ' Kye{op,£vov) 'Upcovos 'lepoickeos, "SvpciKoaioi Geots iracn. On 

a marble in the Museum of Syracuse. 

4 Inscriptions on the Theatre of Syracuse. See p. 37. 

( xxviii ) From Lord Northwick's collection. Torremuzza, xcvin. 8,9. 

(xxix) Torremuzza, tab. xcix. 1. 



132 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



mentioned, it would seem that these are the produce 
of a very limited coinage, — that the title was never 
again employed on the money of Hieron, — that the 
silver coinage of his long reign bore the republican 
types alone ; his coinage tending to confirm that 
character of moderation and respect for the people, 
apparent if not real, for which history gives him 
credit. 

As to the diademated beardless head which forms 
the obverse of the ounce and half-ounce, inscribed 
lEPHNOZ, as well as of the silver coin inscribed 
BAZIAEOS lEPHNOZ, there can scarcely be a doubt 
that it is the traditional portrait of Gelon, the ancestor 
of Hieron, whose heroic worship, indicated by the 
diadem, was continued to the latest period of autono- 
mous Syracuse. When Timoleon restored the demo- 
cracy, in the year 343 b. c, the statues of all the 
tyrants were displaced or sold, except those of Gelon, 
who continued to receive heroic honours from the 
Syracusans for his victory at Himera, and for the 
respect which he had shown for the rights of the 
people. 1 A statue of Gelon remained to a late time in 
the temple of Juno, which represented him as clothed 
in an ungirded shirt («/ d&o-Tw ^t&W), in memory of 
his having presented himself in this guise in the midst 
of an armed assembly, to whom he accounted for his 
administration as (TTparrjybs in the Carthaginian war. 2 
The diademated beardless head cannot be a portrait of 
Hieron II. himself, who, as we have seen, was little 
disposed to obtrude even his kingly title upon the 

1 Plutarch. Timoleon, 23. Diodor. 11, 38. Polyaen. 1, 27. 
^Elian. V. H. 6, 11. Dion Chrys. Corinth, p. 240. 

2 uElian. V. H. 13, 37. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



133 



Syracusans, and who never wore the diadem, as mani- 
festly appears from the offence given by Hieronynms 
when, with a degree of pride and ostentation which 
formed the strongest contrast to the discretion and 
simplicity of his grandfather, he drove out, attended 
by armed satellites, in a chariot drawn by white 
horses, in the manner of Dionysius I.; assuming at 
the same time the purple and the diadem, 1 which 
latter had not been worn even by Agathocles, when, 
in imitation of Lysimachus and Cassander, he took 
the title of BaaiXevs. 2 

Nor ought we to omit the consideration, that it was 
not yet the practice, even among Asiatic princes, — with 
the exception of the Seleucidse, with whom the custom 
commenced with their founder Seleucus Nicator, and 
of Demetrius Poliorcetes, who imitated their Oriental 
pride, — to place the portrait of the reigning prince 
upon the national currency. Thus the diademated 
beardless head upon the coins of the Bithynian kings 
is a traditional heroic portrait of Nicomedes I., the 
founder of the dynasty. On the coins of the Perga- 
menian kings a similar head represents Philetaerus ; 
and even Ptolemy Philadelphus, at least during a 
great part of his reign, placed on his coins the por- 
trait of his father, as the heroic founder of his king- 
dom. During the forty-four years of the reign of 
Antigonus Gonatas, no portrait of that king occurs on 
the Macedonian coins ; although his father Demetrius 
Poliorcetes had assumed that honour : nor was it until 
the reign of Philip V., who boasted a descent from 
Achilles and the Heracleidse, that we find a portrait of 
the reigning monarch in the Macedonian series. 

1 Liv. 24, 5. 

2 diddrjixa fiev ovk eitpivev e^eu/. — Diodor. 22, 54. 



134 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



It is scarcely necessary to combat the opinion that 
some of the coins inscribed IEP.QNOZ are coeval with 
Hieron L; or that the diademated head may be his 
portrait. It is sufficient to compare any of these coins 
with the Damaretia which were struck just before the 
reign of Hieron I., to show that there must have been 
a long interval between the latter and those inscribed 
IEPX2NOH, the style of which is precisely that of the 
time of Hieron II. : unquestionably, therefore, they 
were all produced in the long reign of that king. 1 

We must admit that the diademated beardless 
head on the coins of Hieronymus (xxx) differs in some 
degree from that on the coins of Hieron II. : the face 
is generally more round and full, and the chin not so 
pointed ; but there is, nevertheless, a general resem- 
blance. It is not impossible that on the coins both of 
Hieron and Hieronymus, the artists, in representing 
the traditional head of Gelon, their common ancestor, 
may have infused into the features some likeness of 
the reigning prince. The obverses of the coins of 
Hieronymus cannot have been exact portraits of that 
king, because they represent a person of middle age ; 
whereas Hieronymus was not more than fifteen years 
old when he began his reign of fifteen months. There 
can be little doubt, therefore, that these heads, as well 
as those on the coins of Hieron II., were intended for 
Gelon. 

After these observations, it is almost unnecessary 
for me to add, that I can neither agree with Visconti, 
who, in his ' Iconographie Grecque,' has given a por- 

1 erq v Kai rerrapa (3a.(Ti\ev(Tas . — Polyb. 7, 8. He had been <rrpa- 
rrfyos five years before he became fiao-iXtvs. Lucian. Macrob. 10. 
Liv. 24, 4. 

( xxx ) Taylor Combe, Num. in Mus. Brit. tab. iv. fig. 12. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



135 



trait of Hieron L, taken from the coins of Hieron II.; 
nor with Eckhel, who distinguishes the coins of 
Hieron I. from those of Hieron II. ; and still less with 
Mionnet, who has attributed coins severally to Hieron I., 
to Dionysius II., and to Hieron II. To none of these, 
I believe, can any coins be specifically ascribed by 
means of their types or legends, with the sole excep- 
tion of those of Hieron II., in gold, silver, and copper, 
which have been mentioned; and which, after all, form 
but a small portion of the money issued at Syracuse 
during his reign. 

The coins of Philistis may appear perhaps excep- 
tional to these conclusions, inasmuch as they seem 
to present a portrait of one of the reigning family ; 
but as we know nothing either of the person or of the 
circumstances under which the coins were struck, 
they need hardly be taken into consideration. The 
most probable conjecture is, that Philistis was a de- 
ceased wife of Hieron II., whose memory he thus 
honoured. The veil seems to mark her position in 
infer is. 

There remain two silver coins of Syracuse, difficult 
of explanation, namely, those inscribed ZYPAKOSIOI 
rEAnNOZ, (XX3d) and those which bear on the obverse 
the Roman figures XIII. Of the former there are ex- 
tant pieces of 8 litrae and of 4 litrae. On the obverse 
is the head of Gelon, sufficiently resembling those on 
the coins of Hieron II. and Hieronymus to leave no 
question that they were intended for the same person. 
The pointed chin, which, in many of the coins of 
Hieron, is rather exaggerated, is still distinguishable. 
There were three periods in Syracusan history in 



(xxxi) Torremuzza, tab. xcvn. 



136 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



which we may imagine such coins to have been struck. 
The first was in the years 463 and 462 b. c, when, 
soon after the expulsion of Thrasybulus, 7000 of those 
aliens who had been made Syracusan citizens by Gelon, 
having been deprived of their rights by the other citi- 
zens, seized Achradina and Nasus, and held those posts 
for nearly two years. 1 They may well have described 
themselves as "Syracusans of Gelon." But the coins 
in question are certainly not of that early date. 

The next historical period in which these pieces may 
have been struck is about 340 b. c, when Timoleon 
had restored the republic, and when the statues of all 
the antecedent tyrants had been subverted, except 
those of Gelon, whose ancient heroic honours were 
confirmed and perpetuated. But even on this occa- 
sion it is not very likely that the heroic head of Gelon 
should have been for the first time admitted on Syra- 
cusan money, which had never hitherto borne any 
obverse less venerable than a head of one of the great 
protecting deities. 

The coins in question, therefore, belong more pro- 
bably to the time when Hieronymus was expelled and 
fled to Leontium, and when the party who had op- 
posed him may have been so much the more anxious 
to show their respect for the memory of Gelon, as 
they were in the act of destroying all the family 
of Hieron II. So strong is the resemblance in the 
heads which form the obverses of the coins of Hiero- 
nymus to those on the coins inscribed ZYPAKOZIOI 
PEAIINOS, that one might almost suspect the dies 
prepared for the former to have been employed for 
the latter by the party who succeeded to power when 
Hieronymus was expelled. 

1 Diodor. 11, 72; 76. 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



137 



That all these coins are nearly of the same time is 
rendered highly probable by the style common to 
them all, and because, like the generality of the later 
silver coins of Syracuse, they bear upon the field or 
exergue one or two letters, as K, Kl, BA, HA, Ml, Al, 
Tl, A, An, A<l>, and others. 

A resemblance of style, indicating an approximation 
in time, is observable also on the coins which weigh 
between 13 and 14 grains, when perfect, and which 
bear upon the obverse the head of Pallas, sometimes 
with the legend ZYPAKOZIHN, and on the reverse 
ZYPAKOSIOI, three dots in a triangle, and the figures 
Xlll. (xxxii) These figures mean, perhaps, that the piece 
was worth 13 ounces. The litra, we know, was equi- 
valent to 12 ounces, and, according to the monetary 
scale of the Syracusans, ought to weigh 13^ grains ; 
but I have never met with litrae, even the best 
preserved, some of which are very ancient, that weigh 
more than 1 2 J grains ; nor are there any in the Hunter 
Collection heavier than 12I, 1 which is the more re- 
markable, as all the multiples of the litra are gene- 
rally correct (allowing for some wear), at the rate of 
13 \ to the litra. Possibly, therefore, the deficiency 
of the old litra was acknowledged when these new 
pieces were struck ; and that, instead of depreciating 
the old litrae, it was preferred to make the new litra 
equivalent to 13 ounces. The chief singularity in 
these small pieces consists in the use of the Roman 
numerals XIII ; whence it would seem that the nume- 
rical notation of Italy, according to which the numbers 
5 and 10 were expressed by V and X, was employed 

( xxxii ) In my own collection and in the British Museum. Torre- 
muzza, xcvn. 12. 

1 Mus. Hunter, p. 295. 

S 



138 



NOTES ON SYRACUSE. 



at Syracuse, and perhaps in other parts of Sicily; and 
not the P and A or the E and I, by which the Greeks 
expressed the same two numbers. The three dots 
arranged in a triangle may perhaps have the same 
meaning as the triquetra, or three legs, so common 
on Sicilian money. 

These latter remarks, I must admit, are little better 
than conjectures, which I should have omitted, if they 
had not appeared to offer some aid to further inquiry. 
Archaeology is most effectually promoted by an enlarged 
knowledge of the ancient monuments, and by dif- 
fusing the means of comparing them with one another: 
an object which derives important aid from the inven- 
tions of photography and electrotype, and the means 
afforded by these new arts of multiplying correct 
copies or delineations of ancient monuments of every 
kind with a facility and perfection unattainable in 
former times. The great number of Greek states 
which had a separate coinage, the immense variety of 
types and legends displayed in the money of both 
Greeks and Romans, render their numismatics one of 
the most instructive and interesting chapters in the 
history of ancient civilization. Great progress has 
undoubtedly been made in this science during the last 
and present century ; but much may still be done by 
the publication of inedited coins, by the republication 
of those of which there exist only unfaithful repre- 
sentations, and by a record of weights such as those 
annexed to the catalogues of Mionnet and the two 
Combes. For the promotion of these objects the 
British Museum now possesses efficacious means in its 
extensive collections, and in its power of corresponding 
with other similar establishments in foreign countries. 



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